The Man with No Time

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of an academic career is public outreach. Sadly, I think it's also one of the least appreciated aspects among the people occupying said academic careers, and usually the first to be dropped when time and/or funding is tight. As a PhD student I was heavily involved in the operation of the Astronomy department's mobile, inflatable planetarium. I even coordinated the program for two and a half years! We travelled all over Eastern Scotland giving shows to the public, and I loved it. Since starting my Postdoc position I've given several public talks, mostly at careers events. These have been great fun, and I learnt a lot about presenting from one of the outreach officers in the department at Warwick. But in the last six months or so I've started getting involved in a different side of the public engagement game - press interviews. These have been simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, but on the whole I've e...

Something a little bit different today - I've been on television! I've mentioned it briefly before, but my boss is the 'Head of the Science Team' for the new ESA PLATO mission. Since it was selected by ESA last month he's been very busy giving talks, presentations, and interviews about the mission. Yesterday he had the science team from the local BBC TV channel along to interview him about it for a short piece. Since he was getting a bit fed up with the whole thing he decided that it would be good for myself and Dave (one of his PhD students) to get involved too! I was a little nervous about it, as I've not had any interaction with the press before. But it turned out to be a lot of fun. The science reporter was very easy going, and made it seem more like a chat than an interview. He did give me one piece of advice, which was to finish my thoughts even if I stumble rather than trying to restart, as you can always edit and do retakes. Very much like ...