Deborah Blum is an acclaimed science journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and Director of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT. With a career spanning decades, she has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between science and the public through her compelling storytelling and her commitment to advancing science literacy. Her influential books, including The Poisoner’s Handbook and The Poison Squad, explore the intersection of science, history, and societal impact, earning her widespread recognition. At the Knight Science Journalism program, Deborah leads efforts to train and support journalists worldwide, fostering a global community dedicated to improving the quality of science communication and addressing pressing challenges like misinformation and declining public trust in science.
In this conversation, Deborah discusses the evolving role of science journalism in today’s complex information landscape. From her leadership at the Knight Science Journalism Program to her insights on science literacy and the challenges of misinformation, Deborah explores how journalists and scientists can work together to build a more informed and trusting society. She emphasises the importance of education, social justice, and effective communication in fostering a science-literate public while highlighting the program’s global impact in empowering the next generation of science journalists and the power of storytelling in bridging the gap between science and society.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at the Knight Science Journalism headquarters, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. Recorded in April 2024.
For our host Suze, the countdown to Christmas means three things - excitement, new gadgets, and an almost daily dose of Disney in one form or another. So, since it's December, let's tick off a hattrick of all three of those boxes with this special extra-long conversation with Dr Danny Hillis - inventor, innovator, and the founder of Applied Invention. Want to avoid that annual appraisal or procrastinate around your 2025 planning? Grab a drink and a chocolate orange, and spend 50 minutes hearing from the legend that developed the knowledge graph that provides the foundations for Google Search. In this conversation, Danny chats with Dr Suze Kundu about his journey from building the fastest computers to founding Applied Invention, emphasising the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in solving complex problems. He reflects on the legacy of Thinking Machines and its impact on parallel computing and artificial intelligence, as well as his role in developing the Google Knowledge Graph. Danny also addresses the challenges of misinformation in the digital age and the need for a robust infrastructure to discern truth. He highlights the significance of aesthetic design in technology and the potential for future advancements in knowledge representation.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at the Applied Invention Massachusetts office, Cambridge, MA, USA. Recorded in April 2024.
As the Aaron Sorkin global political drama that is 2024 reached its season finale in the USA in November, Suze sat down for a chat about the politicisation of research with Professor Jenny Reardon, Professor of Sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the Founder of Science and Justice Research Center.
Jenny and Suze met back in June when they both attended a workshop on Science at Social Justice at the Lorenz Center in Leiden, The Netherlands, as a result of a session at Sci Foo 2023 where like-minded people gathered to talk about the state of research and its impact on all of society.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at the Møller Institute, Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, UK. Recorded in July 2024.
People who win awards tend to win more awards in the future. Even putting yourself forward for self-nominated awards falls along the lines of privilege and confidence. And even if you win awards, there is no guarantee that it will have a positive impact on your research career as measured by traditional metrics of success. How can we diversify the talents we celebrate and support, and ensure that no groundbreaking discoveries are overlooked, to truly tackle the global challenges we are facing as a society?
This is something Suze chatted about with Dr Gilbert De Gregorio, Associate Director of the Frontiers Planetary Prize. Suze and Gilbert also chat about the benefits of prize programs in encouraging and rewarding creativity in overcoming global challenges, and how prize committees must look beyond those who are victims of the "success snowball" to find the most innovative people and ideas.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at Falling Walls 2023 in Berlin, Germany. Recorded in November 2023.
If I said the word “mathematics”, it is a fairly safe bet that reactions would be mixed. While many people love maths, the subject can provoke quite a different response in others. It is common for folks to be transported back in time to childhood memories of formulae written on classroom whiteboards in what feels like a different language.
However, mathematician, concert pianist, and author Dr Eugenia Cheng – is on a mission to change that perception of the subject she loves and showcase the joy, creativity and wonder of maths, and how it underpins our everyday lives, from the food we eat to the entertainment we consume. Dr Suze Kundu caught up with Eugenia ahead of her talk at the Ri in June 2024 in the spectacular Faraday Lecture Theatre to talk about the creativity, wonder and relatability of maths, and how we can all engage with it in ways that bring us joy.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed in the Faraday Lecture Theatre at The Royal Institution. Recorded in June 2024.
For this Speaker Series episode, Suze popped by the home of engineer and godfather of street skating Rodney Mullen in lovely Los Angeles to chat about culture, creativity and community in science and skateboarding. As a chemical engineer, an inventor and innovator, and a professional skateboarder responsible for revolutionising the sport and taking it from the pools to the streets, Rodney is no stranger to success, failure, and problem-solving. In this conversation, Suze asks him about the role community plays in research and development, the power of persistence, and why we need many different minds in art and science to make a meaningful and impactful difference to society.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at Rodney Mullen's home in Los Angeles, USA. Recorded in August 2024.
In this episode of our Speaker Series, Suze meets Dr Maria Avxentevskaya, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and Dr Ben Johnson, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion. The Max Planck Institute has played a role in many research breakthroughs that have impacted society. In this chat, Maria, Ben and Suze discuss the history and philosophy of science, exploring topics such as the role of scientific institutions, cycles of complexity in science, ethical considerations in scientific research, and the ever-changing, transformative landscape of research practices. They also tackle the impact of new technologies, such as AI, on the scientific community and society, and the importance of science communication and public engagement.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at the library of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Recorded in November 2023.
Alice Meadows has been working in community engagement with research infrastructure for many years now, with leadership roles at both ORCiD and NISO. Most recently, Alice co-founded the MoreBrains Cooperative, a consultancy that helps research stakeholders better understand how to build solutions that centre around the research community and respond to its varied and ever-changing needs.
In this chat, Alice tells Suze about research infrastructure, persistent identifiers (PIDs), why metadata matters, and what she would like to see from the future of information management in the research community, ahead of the first-ever PIDFest, a conference that focuses on persistent identifiers for research information and infrastructure, which took place at the National Library of Technology in Prague, Czechia in June 2024.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed in Greater Boston, MA, USA in April 2024.
In this episode of our Speaker Series, Suze meets Chief Publishing Officer at PLOS, Dr Niamh O'Connor. Niamh started her career as a chemist, before moving into the exciting world of publishing. With a passion for open research, collaboration and inclusion in research, Niamh has been pivotal in nudging the culture of scholarly communications towards openness. As Chief Publishing Officer at PLOS, Niamh provides business leadership for the entire PLOS portfolio, ensuring that all outputs have a strong value proposition and advance PLOS’s vision and mission. A pivotal figure in academic publishing, Niamh talks with Dr Suze Kundu about the evolving landscape of scientific research and the push towards open science, including her journey from the early days of advocating for public access to research, to tackling current challenges like making science more inclusive and accessible.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at Locke at East Side Gallery, Berlin, Germany in November 2023.
In this episode of our Speaker Series, Suze chats with Nobel laureate and former President of the Royal Society Professor Venki Ramakrishnan. Venki began his scientific career as a physicist but, soon after his PhD, he felt he was missing out on researching the concepts that truly fascinated him. He embarked on a quest to find the research area for him and pivoted to structural biology, within which he has carved a successful career. In this chat, Venki talks about his career path, the biology of ribosomes, and how governments, funders and other stakeholders can work together to maximise the impact of research on society.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (the MRC LMB), Cambridge, UK. Recorded in March 2024.
Matyas Kovacs is the co-founder of futurehain, a strategy and creative agency that elevates the robustness and visibility of scientific ideas and helps them become a reality. He is also an Executive Advisor of the Falling Walls Foundation.
In this episode, Matyas discusses the intersection of science and society. He shares insights into fostering collaboration, enhancing the visibility of scientific ideas, and building robust research communities. Matyas emphasizes the importance of open, transparent, and impactful science in addressing global challenges.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed at Falling Walls in Berlin, Germany in November 2023.
In the ever-evolving landscape of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the underrepresentation of women remains a significant challenge. The impact of this gender disparity is far-reaching, affecting not only the individuals involved but also hindering the potential advancements and innovations that could arise from including broader perspectives and lived experiences and the diversity of thought that an inclusive workforce brings to problem-solving.
To achieve true equity and equality in the research profession, we must first look to its roots – school-level engagement with STEM, and the social structures within which we engage with school-age children and nurture their interests in STEM subjects. Dr Suze Kundu chats with Professor Dame Athene Donald, Professor Emerita of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, Master of Churchill College, Cambridge, and author of the book, "Not Just For The Boys" about how to help scaffold better gender representation in STEM and the research profession.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Filmed in The Georgian Room at The Royal Institution, London, UK in November 2023.
Dr Chris van Tulleken is an award-winning broadcaster, practising NHS doctor and leading academic, and author of "Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food ... and Why Can't We Stop?"
In this episode, Chris dives into the science behind ultra-processed foods and their profound impact on our health, bodies, and society. Drawing on insights from his book, Chris unpacks the hidden mechanisms that shape our modern diets and discusses what we can do to reclaim control over what we eat. Dr Suze Kundu chats with Chris about how thinks we can challenge ourselves to think differently about the food industry, our health, and the role of science in uncovering the truth.
Read more here and watch the episode here.
Series lead and interviewer: Dr Suze Kundu, Director of Researcher and Community Engagement, Digital Science. Filming and production support: Huw James, Science Story Lab. Recorded in September 2023.