Odds and Ends!
For this edition of Making Science Make Sense, we’ve assembled a collection of things that we (and some of our friends!) have been up to! Let’s jump right into it:
We recorded an episode of the Research Comms podcast with Peter Barker. We talk about sensemaking—what it is, why it matters, and why we’re excited about it as the organizing principle of everything we do at Liminal. You can listen to us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen. One of my favorite moments in the episode is when Liz says “I think of sensemaking as giving us a framework that we can attach all of our various skills to”—we’re all bringing something to the table, and we’re all in this together!
Liz also talked with Cheri Sirois at Cell about sensemaking, structure, and how “good writing is good thinking.” Read more of what Liz said here.
I recently had the opportunity to talk a bit about sex, gender, and sexuality in nature at the LA County Museum of Natural History, along with the wonderful Jann Vendetti and Yewande Pearse! You can watch a recording of this event here. I was also interviewed for a piece on the same subject by Kate Evans for New Zealand Geographic: Rainbow World.
Every now and then, social media can be a delightful place! Liz’s bluesky post about NASA’s Voyager 1 went viral: it’s a tale about how we needn’t give up on connection even when we’re very far apart, and on “repair as a radical act.” We’ll let you click through to read about this little nugget of joy for yoursel
Mónica Feliú Mójer, science communicator and community activist extraordinaire, is the subject of a documentary film called Coming Home: The Journey of a Puerto Rican Scientist. It premieres on May 9th, and you can watch its beautiful trailer here.
Kai Chan and crew from the CoSphere community have launched a new podcast called Small Planet Heroes. Their first episodes—about gender and sexuality, and about empathy and love—demonstrate that these folks are not afraid of diving into the deep end of the messy human business of changing the world. I can’t wait to listen more, and you can listen too, right here.
Jessica Hellman and her team at UMN’s Institute on the Environment have a new strategic plan. At Liminal, we’ve been thinking about how institutional documents can both reflect and galvanize change within institutions, and you’ll see mentions of sensemaking and storytelling as part of their vision for public interest communications. (If this is catching your attention, they’re also inviting new applications for affiliates.)
I bet you’re up to something we should put in the next round-up—tell us what it is by replying to this email!
An artist’s depiction of NASA’s Voyager 1 traveling through space.
It’s been three months since we kicked off this newsletter! We hope you’ve been enjoying what you’ve been reading so far—THANK YOU for your time, attention, and engagement. We’d love to hear from you—reply to this email to let us know what you’ve enjoyed, or would like to see more of, and connect with us on bluesky. And if you’d like to support our work at Liminal financially, you can pay a monthly subscription of however much you’d like: click here.
Until next time.
