Last month, I was featured on The Academic Minute, a segment produced by radio station WAMC in the northeastern US. The Academic Minute presents 300-word essays by professors and academics around the world explaining research topics for a non-specialist audience. In my case, that topic was gold nanotechnology.

This opportunity arose when I received an inquiring email from Matthew of The Academic Minute – which my mailbox could have considered spam! I thought, though, that becoming a “radio celebrity” would be a good opportunity to reach the public in a different way about how cool nanotechnology is. So he and I iterated a bit, and then I recorded my piece at my local radio station here, which has a nice facility. It was an interesting experience – my first draft was way too long, and I talked too fast – but the recording engineer and I went back and forth about slowing down, keeping to the key points, etc. to produce a very nice bit of work. It was very worthwhile to improve my skills at communicating with the public!

You can hear my essay and read the transcript here.

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REFERENCE

Alaaldin M. Alkilany; Samuel E. Lohse; Catherine J. Murphy; Acc. Chem. Res.  2013, 46, 650-661. DOI: 10.1021/ar300015b