With just a week left until the #EUSEA22 conference, we wanted to reach out some EUSEA members who are attending, and give you all a little taster of the type of people you might just meet at #EUSEA22! A little pre-event networking!
We knew just the person for this task… so we asked our friend Meital Salmor (Founder and Director, SciComm Skills) to introduce herself and give her the opportunity to share with you some insights into the daily lives of a science communicator.
Meital Salmor
Science communication has completely changed my life.
I guess it was inevitable; no matter how much I tried to keep it “on the side” while working in my regular day-jobs, I kept coming back to it – reading, networking, training, listening and finally travelling abroad to meet experts in the field. It was a love in many sights, until I finally made it official- becoming an independent science communication trainer!
I’m not a researcher by training but have worked with researchers for over 15 years now. Some of them have become close friends and are extremely supportive of my new endeavours.
So, how does my day look? Hmm.. it’s nice to stop and think about it for a moment.
Nevertheless, since I’ve been struggling with long-covid for over 9 months now, my activities are timed with resting periods, so I can’t have very hectic days. But this experience has actually been somewhat helpful, as I also volunteer in Mida’at, a non-profit for public engagement and informed health. Recently, I represented it in the Israeli Parliament’s health committee’s discussion on long covid.
I’m a mom of 3 youngsters ages 14, 11 and 7, and they are definitely part of my day! So, after they go to school, I rush to get started.
My days vary between workshops to students and faculty, webinars for bigger groups and personal training for talks (for experts and non-experts), interviews for fellowships or academic positions, and European Research Council ( ERC) panels. In Israel, practical sci comm skills development is still relatively new. So, besides doing all of the above, and getting researchers and universities on board, I also need to meet and discuss practical sci comm needs and funding in universities with governmental policy makers- Ministry of Science, Ministry of Health and various other entities which fund and prioritize higher education needs. Even though Israel is ranked very highly in high-tech startups and scientists per capita, sci comm is still not a very big part of our education’s priority. My view is therefore very holistic, and I try to see sci comm in many perspectives and constantly examine the biggest sci comm question of all: “Why should they care?”
I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone at the EUSEA gathering and learning more from the experience of my peers!
See you all soon!
If you want to know anything in particular or just have a good sci-comm, then we have included Meital’s contact details below. Or even better if you are coming to Cork, why not come up and say hello, Meital has a butterfly tattoo behind her right ear (if you get that close)????.
Hopefully see you all in Cork in a couple of weeks, for more great fun, interesting chats, and future collaborations!
If you have further questions, feel free to contact Meital!
Meital Salmor- meital@salmor.co.il
