Editor's Note: Making science more relevant to society and to nonscientist audiences.

   A doctoral student struggles with the tensions in doing so -- and the culture of the science "academy" -- in the wake of a March 17-19, 2003, Scripps Institution of Oceanography workshop of top-level science and environmental journalists and climate scientists.

   The workshop is the second in a series organized by Environment Writer's publisher, the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting (read the report from the initial kickoff workshop. The workshop report from the Scripps Institution meeting will be posted online early this summer, and future issues of EW will provide ongoing details on the workshop initiative.

by Tegan Blaine

Most people come to graduate school to study science because they love the thrill of puzzle-solving, of fitting small ideas and tests together to understand larger principles of how the world works. They're excited about the prospects for observing something no one has seen, or of suddenly understanding how different mechanisms fit together to cause a larger-scale phenomenon that no one has managed to adequately explain.

I enjoy this process, too, but that's not why I decided to undertake a Ph.D. at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.

I returned to school because I see global-scale environmental problems that my generation will have to address. The issues that motivate me to sit through a day in front of the computer, my shoulders becoming stiff and curved, are admittedly idealistic ones -- "contribution to humanity" is key among them -- rather than just the adrenalin rush of discovery.

I brainstorm with friends about ways to make our research more relevant to society and how to reach out to the non-scientific audience about important issues, as well as doing some serious dabbling in policy classes and outreach programs. But these discussions and desires and "alternative activities" do not necessarily jibe with the formal goals of a scientific Ph.D. program.

I know I need to delve so deeply into one problem that other interests are excluded -- that's what it takes to get through, and that experience will make me a stronger scientist. But I sometimes have conversations with my like-minded peers: Did students with interests like ours exist in the past? Did they decide that the academic path was not flexible enough to accommodate them and drop out? Did they give up these interests in order to fit in better with the mainstream scientific community and to keep their jobs?

Why are we so often discouraged from making these interests and goals part of our careers, or told to wait until we're senior scientists before branching out? Sometimes we struggle to keep hold of the broader societal motivations that brought us to school in the first place because they're not overtly recognized as relevant to an academic career.

As an observer, I listened to the exchange between journalists and scientists at the March 17-19 Metcalf Institute science media workshop through my own filter of questions surrounding my place in an academic world. I arrived with fewer experiences with the media, and perhaps fewer stereotypes, than the invited senior scientists.

I came there with a sense of awe of these masters of the written (and spoken) word, people who can form incisive questions, extract the key messages from myriad technical details, and present a topic in a way that makes it accessible to the average person with a high school science education -- all for a field in which they aren't an expert -- and do it again and again and again, often on a demanding deadline.

Strange as it may seem, one of the most important things I took away from the main media meeting and a later seminar with students was the sense of awe that journalists have about us scientists. They could see our work from a wider vantage point: they told us how much they value our contributions. Yet I often feel isolated from the bigger world; I struggle to put my particular research question into a larger scientific framework, let alone a societal one. In part, the journalists' encouragement to the scientists to share their "passion" served to invoke a sense of pride in our work, one that I'd gradually lost in the ups and downs of school.

Perhaps even more important, however, was the message from the journalists that scientists have a vital role to play in defining science policy and in informing important societal questions and decisions. These issues get into touchy areas very fast for journalists and scientists alike: How about journalistic integrity and an unbiased presentation of facts? How about the scientific view of testing theories with no preconceived notions?

Yet both of these groups, independent as we may wish to be, are still advocates for particular world views: we choose to research or write about one issue rather than another. Doesn't that choice, in and of itself, show bias?

What about when our choices are controlled by funding or editorial pressures? I'm a researcher within a society; does that imply that I need to be responsible for sharing my science with that society, too? (Or, I'm a journalist within a society, but does that mean I have a responsibility to teach rather than just to explain?) What are our responsibilities vis-à-vis the communities we live in? How should that alter our professional paths?

The point that the journalists raised about scientists' influence and -- perhaps even touchier -- power, is a valid one, and it ties into my own concerns about graduate education and the role of the "academy" in our present society.

Journalists are telling us to be more proactive about sharing our work in a society which is increasingly asking scientists to justify their worth. But they aren't questioning the value of what we do; they're reminding us that we are not just scientists but also individuals living in a world beyond our laboratories, one that will need our expertise and ideas.

Yet what can I do, when I agree with that view but am faced with the narrow realities of the academic world, where researchers reluctantly draft a paragraph in a grant in response to the funding agencies' emphasis on "broader impacts"? They know that in the end they will be evaluated on the articles they publish in scientific journals, not on their mentorship skills, their trips to testify before Congress, nor their trips to local elementary schools or substantive interviews with reporters.

As a student, I am being groomed to succeed in this world of science. Where does that leave my interests in policy? Where does that leave my interests in working with human populations on the impacts of climate change? Where does it leave my interests in being able to talk about my work with the media or to reach out to advocacy groups? Am I less of a scientist if I pursue these interests? And if I decide that the battles to make my kind of scientist more acceptable in the academic world are too large for me, what is left for the next generation of students who again have few mentors?