Malgosia Pakulska (@SCBakes) is the Communications and Development Officer at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. She is also a science writer for Research2Reality, a blog designed to engage the public in Canadian research. Malgosia completed her PhD in Professor Molly Shoichet’s lab at the University of Toronto studying drug delivery systems for spinal cord regeneration after injury.
Though she has left the bench, she is still passionate about research and wants to share that excitement with the public. In her spare time, she experiments in the kitchen and blogs about it at Smart Cookie Bakes.
I always assumed I would become a Professor. When I start something I always want to get to the highest level possible and, after starting University education, becoming a Professor was it. That and winning the Nobel Prize.
But three years into my PhD I was struggling to find the motivation for this career path. I went from “I’ll do a post-doc if I find something super interesting” to “I’ll only become a Professor if I can somehow get a position straight out of my PhD” to “I can’t imagine studying the same topic all my life”.
It was hard to get myself to admit this without thinking of it as failure. After all, what’s the point of a PhD if you’re not going to devote your life to research?
The point is that being a scientist is a mindset as much as it is a profession and the things that you learn during your PhD can be applied to many different careers.
As a science writer for Research2Reality, a blog about Canadian research geared towards non-scientists, I have to think critically about the things I read all the time. I have to evaluate articles and pick out the most important information to relay to our readers. I have to make sure readers don’t jump to conclusions based on misrepresented data. All these things I did on a daily basis as a PhD student.
My PhD taught me not to be afraid of complicated names or things I didn’t understand – something that comes in very handy in my current job as a Communications Officer at the Fields Institute where our current focus is “Unlikely Intersections, Heights, and Efficient Congruencing”.
It taught me creativity, perseverance, the importance of asking questions, and how to rack pipette tips really quickly.
These are all skills that I used when I was a scientist at the bench and they are skills I still use today (ok, maybe not that last one).
That’s probably why I was so surprised to see this question on someone’s Twitter feed one day: “Do you still consider yourself a scientist if you’ve left the lab bench?”
Yes, definitely.
Soapbox Science is not just about the speakers. Without a support team of committed, enthusiastic people, a Soapbox Science event simply cannot happen. Each event relies on an animated team of up to 20 volunteers. Volunteers play a crucial role in rounding up the public, chatting to the public informally about being a scientist and the science that interests you, supporting the speakers by managing props and helping to calm any pre-box nerves (even then most experienced speakers get a bit jittery!), as well as handing out Soapbox goodies to lucky audience members! But perhaps the most important role of the volunteers is in gathering data so we can monitor effectively the success of the event: the volunteers carry out the bulk of our streamlined, centralised evaluation process, through interviews, observations, counting footfall and advertising our post-event online surveys.
We ask you to commit to attending the Soapbox Science London event on 27th May. You’ll need to turn up 1 hour before the event starts for a briefing and training. You’ll need to stay until up to an hour after the event ends, to help clear up.
We can’t pay you, but we can provide you with training, skills, networking opportunities and an awful lot of fun! You’ll learn how broad-scale public engagement events are evaluated; you’ll develop your skills in chatting informally with the public about science; get to steal innovative ideas on how to communicate science to a lay audience. And most importantly, you’ll make new friends with up to 20 other like-minded volunteers, meet your local Soapbox Science organising team, and build links with scientists from both your local area and further afield. To keep your energy levels up, we’ll keep you well endowed with drinks and snacks!
Professor Claudia Eberlein studied Physics at the University of Leipzig and gained her Diploma there in 1990. She then moved to the University of Sussex where she completed her PhD in 1993. After two years of postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and two years as Research Fellow at Newnham College Cambridge, she obtained a Royal Society University Research Fellowship which she took to the University of Sussex. She is now Professor of Theoretical Physics and currently also the Head of the Department of Physics & Astronomy. Soapbox Science Brighton is grateful to 
By Vicky Butt, who is a PhD student studying bioinformatics and metagenomics at King’s College London.
At Soapbox Science HQ, we get quite a few invitations to come and speak about the initiative and the issues facing women in science generally. Between our day jobs (of being scientists!), family and other commitments we sadly have to turn down many of these. However, we found it difficult to turn down a recent invitation from Morley College, one of the most valuable resources in London for public education for all ages. The founding principles of Morley College and Soapbox Science have a lot in common: education for the masses, and equal opportunities. It is rare to come across organisations that promote both: this is why we simply had to find time to squeeze the Penny Lecture into our hectic lives.
Emma Cons set up the “Penny Popular Scientific Lectures” as a weekly series of lectures given (unpaid) by well-known scientists of the day. The punters paid anything from a penny to three pence, making it affordable for anyone to come along and learn about important scientific breakthroughs: ‘The Telephone – How to talk to a man a hundred miles away’ was the first lecture, given by William Lant Carpenter in 1882. Emma recruited her lecturers by writing to Nature, appealing to the magazine’s authors to come and speak. Later speakers included the founder and editor of Nature, the astronomer Norman Lockyer. Interestingly, these science events took place within an otherwise entirely arts-driven enterprise, and they were introduced in order to save money (not needing to pay artists on nights when there were science lectures)! The Penny Lectures became so popular that audiences were 800-900 people strong. I felt somewhat humbled, 127 years later, to be giving a Penny Lecture about Soapbox Science and the current state of gender equality in science (albeit to a much more modestly sized audience!). The punters to my lecture paid a penny, just as those in 1880 would have done. I couldn’t resist working out that 1d (one old penny) in 1880 would be equivalent to about £3.50 today, based on the proportion of a full-time “working man’s” salary from 1880, and the London living wage today. So, a Penny Lecture, in today’s money, would cost you (a lot!) less than a pint of beer.
Hi! I’m Cristina, one of the local organisers of the upcoming Soapbox Science event in Palermo. I’m a marine ecologist interested in the study of community patterns induced by disturbances (including environmental and human driven changes) and the effects on seabed biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. I completed my PhD in 2014, studying the effects of fishery disturbance on benthic communities. I then moved to the University of Palermo’s Experimental Ecology Laboratory as a postdoc in the framework of a regional research project at the Italian Research Centre (IAMC-CNR). Here I have lead a systematic review process to produce an inventory of regional (Sicilian) biodiversity conservation which is among the most common spatial management measures of protection (now extended to a global scale). During both my PhD and postdoc, I’ve spent long periods of time in the United Kingdom learning new techniques which can be applied to a Mediterranean context. Recently I’ve started to explore the role of species interactions in the marine ecosystem; invasive species monitoring and the study of ecology of invasion; the study of multiple stressors on marine habitats; climate change effects on marine resources management; and models for sustainable exploitation of marine resources.
I’m a very enthusiastic person and a little hardheaded. If I have an idea I can talk about it for hours. Travelling back to the laboratory after a long sampling day with my supervisor, Prof. Gianluca Sarà, I told him about Soapbox and he suddenly said “YES”. We started to imagine how the event would work and planning how to involve the University. Even though men are more numerous than women in STEM fields, this is a problem that affects everyone who values the work that female researchers do and we have had great support from people such as Prof. Gianluca Sarà. That same evening I wrote to Nathalie and Seirian, at Soapbox Science.
Imagine yourself stood upon Brighton Seafront, the Pier behind you, talking about science with passers-by and inspiring them to find out more about your research…sound inviting? Well, this summer you have your chance as Soapbox Science comes to Brighton for the first time!
Soapbox Science Brighton is a fantastic opportunity for female researchers in any field of STEMM to connect with the general public, discuss their research and show-off the diversity of research that women are involved in on the South Coast. “We are really pleased to be bringing the event to the people of Brighton and excited for the discussions that will take place. Having a number of previous Soapbox Science participants on the event committee demonstrates the positive impact that the event has, not just for the general public, who really get stuck in asking questions, but also the researchers taking part” adds Katy Petherick, Brighton Event Co-Organiser.
I am a cancer biologist and biomedical science lecturer at the University of Hull, and this year I coordinated the first Soapbox Science event in Hull and in Yorkshire. Science communication has always been extremely important to me, so much that my earliest forays into the wonders of science were done through reading books by Carl Sagan and other such wonderful science communicators, and watching science documentaries. I have been involved in science communication and public engagement since I was a PhD student, and have done a bit of everything, from science festivals, open days, science busking, to SciBar, Cafe Scientifique and Pint of Science. In 2013 a colleague sent me a link about Soapbox Science and encouraged me to apply. I was thrilled to be selected as one of the speakers for the London Soapbox Science in 2014. I utterly loved it and on the train back decided that I was going to organise a Soapbox Science event in Hull, and the rest is history… Two years later we had our first Soapbox Science event in Hull this September and it was a great success, and extremely well received.
My favourite thing about the 2016 Hull Soapbox Science event was bringing all our amazing scientist speakers together, seeing them deliver their talks whilst always being so enthusiastic, even in all the rain we had on the day! They are all truly inspiring. I also really enjoyed how it all came together on the day. It had been a lot of work and prep up to then, so it was a relief when we got started and it all worked really well, even in the rain…
For those interested in setting up a Soapbox Science event, my advice is to set the date and location really early, tap into any Marketing and Communications departments for support, contact specialist organisations and learned societies for funding, and be persistent! Chasing people up for information and confirmations might feel uncomfortable but is absolutely necessary. Most of all, don’t forget to enjoy the process, it is easy enough to get caught in all that planning… And final piece of advice: be prepared for sunshine and rain! I still regret not buying those emergency ponchos…
By Jessica Davies
Prior to the event I prepared my props – a fun opportunity for scientific creativity! (I know that “scientific creativity” sounds like an oxymoron, but honestly, scientists can be creative and imaginative when that rare opportunity arises!) I was talking about DNA – what it is and how we can study it to increase our understanding of diseases; and in relation to my research, what is multiple sclerosis (MS) and what have we learnt about MS genetics?
I decided to make a cell, a nucleus, and DNA. This was actually easier said than done (try finding a blank and empty spherical container about 10 cm in diameter, inside another larger spherical container. Even Amazon doesn’t sell these things.). I made the cell and nucleus from my two year old nieces’ stacking spheres, and the DNA from beads and string. Simple, yet effective! I also needed a monkey toy and a banana – I emphasise need, because who doesn’t need a monkey and banana when talking about genetics?
I actually LOVED standing on top of a box in the middle of a busy street, wearing a white coat, shouting to passers-by to draw them in: did you know that we are 50 % genetically identical to bananas?! And 99 % similar to monkeys?! (That’s where the banana and monkey cuddly toy prop came in by the way). I loved talking to larger crowds of people, and people asking questions – the larger the crowd, the more questions, the better; the sorts of situations that you would think are most terrifying, right? What I really loved though was the ability to inspire others about science. To show them how fascinating each and every one of us human beings is, how we are all linked by this molecule of life, a code of letters, a molecule invisible to the naked eye. To talk about how this molecule is intricately complex and fascinating, and how scientists are studying it to understand disease and ultimately make better treatments. I felt like all the speakers that day had ignited enthusiasm, awareness, and scientific understanding in many people. Everyone seemed to be buzzing with the success of the first Soapbox Science Oxford event; I know I was!
On top of our usual events, Soapbox Science’s 7th year is set to bring innovative, awe-inspiring, and mind-boggling science to arts festivals around the UK. Thanks to our new STFC-funded project, Soapbox Art & Science will now also be uniting artists and female scientists to explore fresh and engaging ways of communicating scientific ideas through art, and testing them out on audiences at arts festivals.
Soapbox Science is a grass-roots science event that brings science to the masses, and tackles inequality issues in science. Female scientists stand on soapboxes on busy urban streets and chat with the public about their work. Our Art & Science events will match scientists with an artist (from a variety of disciplines), who will work with them in the run up to the event to produce a new, innovative and engaging way to help communicate their science. As a non-profit initiative who runs free science communication events, we are unable to pay artists and scientists for their time. We are mindful of the financial and time pressures experienced by many artists and scientists, and therefore do not expect new art work to be produced for these specific events. We moreover expect time commitments from the artists & scientists to be kept to a minimum.
Oxford – July 2017