Alan Alda to Speak at Stony Brook University, Thurs. Feb. 19, "Getting Beyond a Blind Date with Science"

Alan Alda – actor, writer, science advocate and Visiting Professor at Stony Brook University– will share his passion for science communication in a free, public talk entitled, “Getting Beyond a Blind Date With Science.”

The talk will begin at 7 pm, Thursday, Feb. 19, in the University’s Student Activities Center Auditorium on the main campus in Stony Brook, N.Y. Seating is on a first come, first-served basis and is open to the public. The event is sponsored by the School of Journalism and its Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.

Why is it so important for scientists, engineers and health professionals to communicate effectively with the public? And how can they learn to do it better? In his talk, Professor Alda will explore these questions with his characteristic warmth and wit. He will draw on his personal experiences, including his years as host of the TV series Scientific American Frontiers. In talking with hundreds of scientists for that program, he saw that they communicate much better when they carry on real, personal conversations about their work, rather than lecturing or falling back on technical language.

He brought that insight to Stony Brook, inspiring the University’s School of Journalism to create the Center for Communicating Science in 2009. The Center was renamed is his honor in 2013, and has become a national leader in helping current and future scientists learn to share their work more effectively with the public.

“For years, I worked to bring communication and science together in a fundamental way. And now Stony Brook is helping it happen -- here and across the country,” Professor Alda said. “The blossoming of the Center for Communicating Science in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook is a dream come true for me.”

Mr. Alda will also participate in a workshop for Stony Brook science faculty members being held Feb. 20. That workshop is not open to the public. Interested faculty members can contact the Alda Center at 631-632-2130, AldaCenter@stonybrook.edu. Among other techniques, the Center uses improvisational theater exercises -- not to turn scientists into actors, but to help them connect to others in more attentive, responsive ways.

One of the Center’s best known activities is the Flame Challenge, an international contest in which scientists try to explain something complex to 11-year-olds – and 11 year-olds judge their entries. This year’s question is “What is sleep?” Scientists can enter until midnight Feb. 13, and teachers can sign their classes up to serve as judges. The winning entries will get a $1,000 prize and be honored at an event at the World Science Festival in New York City, hosted by Alan Alda. For more information, see FlameChallenge.org.

The Alda Center offers courses in Communicating Science to graduate, medical, nursing and dental students at Stony Brook. It has conducted workshops for faculty and students at universities around the country, including Stanford, Cornell, the University of Chicago, Rockefeller University and UC San Diego. Its Alda Kavli Leadership Program offers special programs for senior science leaders who already are on the front lines representing their institutions or their fields. The Center also is building a network of affiliated programs to collaborate on helping scientists communicate better with people outside their own field. The network includes Dartmouth College, the American Chemical Society and, most recently, the University of Vermont, which joined this week.