SciComm Lab Fellows 2023-2024
The graduate student and postdoc Communication Fellows in the Science Communications Lab offer individual coaching, targeted workshops, and a range of initiatives to support the Brandeis scientific community with the skills they need to communicate the rationale, process and results of their incredible science to any audience in written, spoken or visual form.
We invite any Division of Science undergraduate student, graduate student, postdoc, laboratory-staff or faculty person to make a coaching appointment to review any scientific work involving communication: posters, scientific talks, journal articles, resumes, fellowship applications, and more. Use us anywhere from brainstorming to final edits – the earlier the better.
The lab is located in Abelson 114 but online appointments are available.
“I did not know what to expect. I knew I had a fellowship to apply for, and it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else take a look at what I called “ the final draft”. It was late Friday and a SciComm Lab fellow was available, so I thought “why not?”. During the meeting, the fellow helped me organize my thoughts, to come up with strategies to write it better, and to have a plan on how to structure every essay. I ended up changing completely all my essays (I had 6 total). Within 3 weeks, I went to the SciComm Lab multiple times, and improved all 6 of my essays. I just submitted my fellowship, and I have never been so proud of my scientific writing. Now as I am applying for something else, I am using similar tools I learned, and I am more confident in my scientific writing skills. Since English is not my first language, I still have grammatical issues, but now I know my applications are not only grammatically correct, but have strong and competitive essays.” - Graduate student
“The SciComm Lab was very helpful for my summer internship applications, and it continues to impact my life now that I’ve been accepted into the NCI Introduction to Cancer Research Careers program. The reason that I like the SciComm Lab is because the post-doctoral fellows and graduate students structure each session so that the most can be done in a span of 30 minutes or an hour. At the beginning of each session, they ask me what I would like to cover and make recommendations how to structure the session. In this way, each session is a collaborative effort. The fellows are supportive of my ideas and help me think differently about how to approach my research-program personal statements and upcoming interviews. I highly recommend that undergrads take advantage of this awesome program as soon as they arrive at Brandeis because of the mentorship I’ve gained from the senior scientists and graduate students provides an informed perspective when navigating our undergraduate years and scientific endeavors. I also like the versatility of SciComm Lab because the Fellows can guide us through any aspect of our scientific careers.” - Undergraduate student