How a single Twitter DM, sent years ago, sparked an AK CASC effort to prepare a new generation of science communications 

When the pandemic reinforced the importance of responsible science communication, two Alaska scientists hatched big plans

In the fall of 2020, while scrolling through her happiest slice of science communications Twitter (now X), an unexpected direct message (DM) piqued Kristin Timm’s interest: “Hey, do you want to talk about science communication sometime?”

The message came from John Pearce, the Associate Center Director for Ecosystems Research at the USGS Alaska Science Center. He had just begun to experiment with social media and science communication, and the circles in which he found himself were highly interesting. Hoping to improve his own organization’s science communication, he found Timm — a double UAF alumni who at the time was finishing her PhD in the discipline at George Mason University — and turned to her for ideas on how to improve outreach.

While she wasn’t writing her dissertation on the messaging of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, Timm was working at George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, where they had a program matching college students with D.C. area national parks to improve their climate change communication. Through her time as a science communicator with the AK CASC, she had seen first-hand that, without a strategy to effectively and equitably share findings, new research would simply publish into a void. 

Actionable science, she knew, was incomplete without two-way channels that connected scientists with policymakers, Indigenous communities, students, funders, and citizens alike. Pearce agreed.

“We wanted to have some sort of plan at USGS,” says Pearce, whose colleagues conduct research to provide actionable science for management bureaus such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Their work includes research on marine mammals, migratory birds, caribou, and land and wildlife health — the findings from which, if effectively shared, can help people and communities better understand the role of USGS science in preparing and forecasting for uncertain futures. Communities, ecosystems, kitchen tables, wallets, and personal health are all affected by a changing climate.

“There was interest from the scientists here in having regular and repeatable communications where we could share the value of science and publications we felt were important,” Pearce says.

In 2020, the entire world was quickly learning this importance — the pandemic had enrolled everyone in a science communications crash course. Researchers found themselves thrust into a never-dimming media spotlight. Journalists became suddenly responsible for sharing crucial health data and updates. Anxious citizens, seeking trusted information, were consuming science daily and adding phrases like “flattening the curve” and “incubation period” to their lexicons. 

And on Twitter — its threads of productive discussion often outnumbered by misinformation and disruptive messaging — Timm and Pearce saw ways in which science communication, at such a crucial time, was both succeeding and failing. 

“We were all living through this grand science communication experiment of Covid,” Timm says. “The UN Declaration on Human Rights has said that everyone has the right to benefit from science. So when we think about science as a public service, that causes us to ask: how do we ensure that those benefits are conveyed?”

She wrote back to Pearce: “Let’s set up a zoom call and talk about this!”

After a successful thesis defense, a return home to Alaska, and four of the world’s warmest years on record, Timm is now a research assistant professor with the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC). Her work focuses on the science of science communication and actionable science: how to inspire, motivate, and strategize the sharing of science to respond to a changing planet.

This summer, years after first exchanging serendipitous messages, Timm and Pearce — now colleagues — successfully brought their vision to life: a nine-week Alaska CASC Communicating Science internship. 

The inaugural cohort — Lia Ferguson, Caroline Wexler, and Maisy O’Neill — created six projects that shared USGS Alaska Science Center research across Alaska in visually appealing, engaging ways. Among the projects were a museum exhibit about glacier mass balance, a children’s book about the R/V Alaskan Gyre, and a guide for people harvesting marine species in waters where harmful algal blooms pervade.

“It was really amazing what the three of them were able to do in such a short amount of time,” Pearce says. “They’re all so talented. It was an opportunity to share new ideas and see new places, exploring all aspects of Alaska.”

The trio presented their final projects in early August to a packed crowd of International Arctic Research Center scientists, USGS affiliates, and other interested observers.

Timm was particularly excited, she says, at how diverse the audiences were for the variety of projects they pursued. Everyone aged five to 105 could appreciate the science shared by this inaugural cohort. “Communication is the critical link between what scientists are learning and what the rest of us hear, shaping our behavior and feelings,” she says. 

The importance of science communication in Alaska continues to be seen, felt, and heard. Last summer brought destructive glacial outburst floods, deadly landslides, record rainfall, and some answers to recent mass snow crab die-offs. Channels of communication and learning are crucial to adaptation, health and safety.

“Because we live in a place that’s changing so rapidly, and people are trying so hard to do the best they can with the information they have, I think we have an ethical imperative to communicate well and invest in communication,” Timm says. “It’s ethically questionable if we’re not.”