Episode 143 - Interview with astrometallurgist Dr Matt Shaw

Transcript

Jen (00:00:11)

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Let's Talk SciComm. I am Jen and I am joined by my delightful colleague, Dr. Michael Wheeler. Hello, Michael.

Michael (00:00:22)

Hello Jen. How are you doing today?

Jen (00:00:25)

I'm really well because today we are talking with somebody who is super fascinating and I'm going to tell you in a minute why he's super fascinating. But I also love how this interview came about because the lovely person we're talking to today, Dr. Matt Shaw, actually contacted us and said, "Hey, I know this really cool person who I think you should interview on your podcast. Her name's Jen and she runs this amazing program called STEMpals". And then the next message he said, "Oh, I've just seen you've actually already interviewed Jen". And we're like, "Yes! Jen is amazing and STEMpals is so cool".

But meanwhile, of course, I couldn't resist having a little bit of a quick look at Matt himself on LinkedIn and went, "Ooh, no, you're really interesting too. We don't need to interview Jen a second time, but could we interview you instead?" And happily, Matt said, "Yes, we could".

So Michael, I'm very pleased to introduce you to Dr Matt Shaw who, I don't know... His career kind of sounds like it came out of a sci-fi novel but in fact I think it is very much grounded in real science. So Matt's currently a research fellow at Swinburne University and he's working on something that I know very little about but I know is a genuinely big problem facing the world today and that is how do we create green steel.

But before that, he's done all of these other really interesting things, working in the deserts of Australia, working in the Canadian Arctic. He's even worked on the surface of the moon, at least from a kind of scientifically speaking point of view. Let's, you know, we'll talk simulations later.

So Matt started his career in the mining industry and he described it as basically Minecraft but in real life. But then somewhere along the way he went from thinking about extracting metals from rocks on Earth to asking this much bigger question of "What if we needed to extract resources in space rather than on Earth?" And I think it was that curiosity that led him back to university where he did a PhD focused on how we might extract and process materials on the moon.

And so now Matt is considered an astrometallurgist. And I've probably pronounced that incorrectly. Matt can correct us in a minute. But he's basically working at the intersection of chemistry and physics and engineering and space exploration to try and figure out how we could one day produce water and oxygen and metals beyond Earth, which is pretty amazing.

So his work is connecting with global efforts in space exploration and working in simulated lunar environments and all this stuff that I find fascinating and know very little about, which is why I'm so glad to have Matt here on the podcast.

But it's not all just that stuff that's really interesting. The reason we're so thrilled to have you on the podcast Matt is that as well as doing all this cool science that obviously must be really fun to talk about, you do actually do that talking. So you've got a huge passion for communication and collaboration. You talk with a lot of school students. You've been in the media a lot.

You've engaged with the public and it feels like you've got this great knack... I've watched some of your interviews. You've got this great knack of making quite complex scientific ideas, not just accessible and understandable but also really exciting, which is something I think we can learn a lot from. So welcome Dr Matt Shaw, we're so happy that you found us and then we found you and you're here.

Matt (00:03:51)

Thank you for having me. Yes, it was... I felt a little bad because I'm a researcher. I probably should have researched previous episodes before I threw suggestions at you, but...

Jen (00:04:00)

Not at all.

Matt (00:04:01)

No, it turned out well.

Jen (00:04:02)

So we need to get started. As I alluded to in our little introduction, you have had I think a pretty unusual career path. You know, going from kind of what can we do on earth to hang on, how can we apply that knowledge and those skills to thinking beyond earth?

Can you just talk us through your journey? What got you interested in this line of work in the beginning? What were the turning points that led you now to be thinking beyond earth? I find that really interesting.

Matt (00:04:29)

Yeah, it's certainly been a wild ride. And it's one of those I think career trajectories…..it's very hard for people to necessarily take inspiration from because it has been all over the place, which is great. I've really enjoyed it.

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a marine biologist. So that didn't work out very well for me. But I did work experience in marine biology. I did work experience as a mountain bike mechanic. Realised that probably neither of those were career options for me in the future.

And my dad mentioned, he's like, "Look, if you like marine biology and you want to go diving a bunch or something, maybe get a job that pays really well. And then you can go diving on your holidays and that will be enjoyable as well". But okay. And I was looking at mining engineering. You know, a bit of an engineering-esque type background. I was pretty good at chemistry and physics.

And I did a trip with the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy to a bunch of different mine sites to look at what the mining industry looks like. And everywhere we went, we talked to this guy called the metallurgist. And I had never heard of metallurgy as a field, as a job. Got really fascinated by it. And it turns out metallurgy is quite literally just the science of taking metals out of rocks. So anything that you've got that is metal, that is around you has come through the hands of a metallurgist at some point.

And it's this cool mix of chemistry, physics, a lot of problem solving, sometimes just smashing things with hammers. And that really appealed to me, right?

Jen (00:05:55)

That sounds fun!

Matt (00:05:56)

Like as a boy, I was like, great. Yeah, it was great. So I did this degree. It was a three-year degree. I don't think you can even do it anymore, which is wild to me because mining is one of Australia's primary industries and we don't train metallurgists. I think there's three universities in Australia that you can do this as a degree now, which is crazy.

And I still get emails and calls from old colleagues saying, "Hey, have you got any students? We'll take any chemical engineers. We'll take anybody at all because we just can't find people to fill these roles", which is really sad. So that's something that was a bit of a campaign of mine.

But finished this three-year degree, got out, ended at 51 ATAR, sorry. So basically passed year 12, got into the degree, finished that. Went to work in Broken Hill in the desert. As you mentioned, that was pretty warm. We would have ice vests in the middle of summer that we would put on before we went outside. It got very very hot. Interesting experience.

Then I went traveling. I went backpacking for a couple of years, which was amazing. Ended up in Canada and got a job working at a gold mine up in Canada, in the Arctic Circle. Which again, very cool experience and completely changes how you operate. This particular plant had been designed by an Australian company. Just between you and me, if you want a plant that operates in the Arctic, probably don't get Australians to design it because we don't know how cold works, right? So that was a whole issue in and of itself.

And yeah, through that... I mean, I've always been really passionate and really interested in science, read a lot of science fiction. But the idea of working in space, while it was a future goal, there was nothing happening at that time. So we're talking 2017, 2018. It's just been a lull, right? Nothing's happened for 50 years since we went to the moon. And I thought, Well, if I do want to do this in the future, I probably just get really good at it on Earth. And then maybe, you know, when I'm going to retire, it starts to happen. I can put my hand up and say, "Hey, I'm interested".

Around 2018, I was getting a little bored in the Arctic. Which sounds crazy but it's very repetitive. Getting a little over the shift work. It's like 12 hour shifts, three weeks on three weeks off. It's a lot of effort. And started nerding out a little bit about space. And the question that got me going and I'll ask this to people when I'm talking is "How would you do what you do if there was no gravity, if there was no air pressure, if you had to do it all robotically?" It just completely changes all the paradigms that we're used to.

And that, I just started nerding out about this in the context of my job. And I thought, I should look this up. Like surely someone's researched it, but I'm really keen. So I started looking into it and I couldn't find anything. I now know that I didn't know how to research things. But at the time, that was really exciting because I thought, Oh, this is amazing. It's this new thing.

So I called it astrometallurgy, which made sense to me. Space and metallurgy mixed together. And I approached a bunch of universities around the world saying, Hey, I want to study this topic. They all said no, because it's not a topic. No one looks at that. And I finally found this professor at Swinburne University, where I am now who thought, Hey, that sounds crazy. Let's do it. Let's give it a go.

And that since turned into the Swinburne Space Technology and Industry Institute. We have astrometallurgy as a field now. So there's publications all over the world popping up with that as its keyword, which is really cool to see because I love it. I think someone recently published a Wikipedia page, so you can now look that up on Wikipedia. So it's really taken on...

Jen (00:09:26)

And hang on, you're the one who coined that phrase?

Matt (00:09:28)

We made it up. Yeah, yeah.

Michael (00:09:32)

Wow.

Jen (00:09:32)

You're famous.

Matt (00:09:33)

I love it. Oh yeah, one day.

Michael (00:09:34)

So how long has astrometallurgy been a field for then?

Matt (00:09:42)

I think eight years, if you look back on something like Google Scholar.

Michael (00:09:43)

Yeah, wow. That's very new.

Matt (00:09:46)

That was the first publication that I made with that as a keyword.

Michael (00:09:49)

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about... I've got a lot of questions. But Matt, your PhD, so you did a PhD then on that topic, and that was all about extracting resources from the moon. So what are the challenges with doing metallurgy in space? You mentioned a couple of them, but what did you learn from your PhD?

Matt (00:10:18)

Quite a lot, you might be surprised to hear. One of my, one of the publications that I'm most proud of was the literature review for the thesis. And that's been picked up quite a lot recently and people are getting really interested in it.

It turns out that pretty much everything doesn't work right. So we're very good at making metals. We understand the chemical pathways. We understand the physics of how things work. But again, when you change those fundamentals, everything gets a little weird. Like our understanding of gravity is terrible. So much so that we measure gravity in gravities. As in like, this is one because it's Earth and this is one gravity. And we never really think about it, right?

Michael (00:10:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (00:10:57)

And that... So when you talk to people and say, "Hey, it still works, but there's one sixth of it on the moon". And so that means that if you're dropping something, it just drops slower. If you're chucking dust up in the air, it stays up there for longer. There's all these little effects that kind of take place.

The one that I'm fascinated by is pressure. Again, we often think of pressure as in one atmosphere because it's one of what we're used to. Sometimes we do higher pressure work, which is interesting. This is low pressure and it changes chemistry and it changes the physics of how things operate.

So I got really fascinated by the idea of vaporising things because if you... So for example, on Earth, if you wanted to vaporise a rock, something like iron oxide, you would be going to maybe 3000 plus degrees Celsius which is very hot, right? The thing melts, you get this puddle, and then it starts to vaporise and turn into a gas. If you take away the pressure, there's this relationship between those things. Have you ever tried to like, have you ever gone mountaineering and boiled a cup of water or something at high altitude?

Michael (00:12:00)

I've never tried it.

Matt (00:12:02)

No, try it. It's good fun. But the water will boil at a lower temperature, right? So you can make really bad tasting tea. But the same thing happens for rocks. And so we found out that, you know, if you've got no pressure, you can start vaporising rocks at a thousand degrees Celsius which is a lot less energy. And it's a really interesting concept that we just never, never explored here on earth.

And so I think those things, along with the fact that automation is really important. So we are so used to, I mentioned before, smacking things with hammers. That was not hyperbole. Sometimes the solution is you go out there and you smack the pipe until it cleans up and starts gushing water.

You can't do that in space, right? Everything has to be really really well engineered. Your maintenance has to be engineered. All of your different processes need to be at least remotely operable but probably automated. And that's something that we have never done in the mining industry, certainly not in metallurgy. So that's a big paradigm shift for the entire industry which is interesting.

Jen (00:13:05)

So Matt, I can totally see that there have been things that have really kept you interested. You know, I can understand why thinking about how do we do this stuff that we know quite well on Earth, how would we do that in different settings? But that doesn't necessarily explain to me why you've invested so much of your time and energy in communicating about it.

Because when I looked you up on LinkedIn and had a bit of a read about you, it wasn't the fact that you've done this interesting kind of you know, moon simulation stuff that really made me say, "Ooh, we need to get Matt on the podcast". It was the fact that you've taken that knowledge and communicated it in lots of different ways to lots of different audiences.

So where did that drive come from? What's the motivation for you? You know, was it a particular moment when you thought, Hang on, I need to be able to explain this to funders or to the public or to children? Like tell us about what made you step into this world of communicating about your work so often and in different ways.

Matt (00:14:02)

Yeah, it's been an interesting journey. So I had not done anything to do with communications in general up until I started the PhD. So I grew up singing. I do a lot of music. So I enjoy that. I'm exposed to talking and performing a little bit. But not this type of communication, certainly not like focused on STEM.

That started for me I think with a Three Minute Thesis in university, so doing the PhD. And I thought, Yeah, if this is going to be my full-time career, I want to do it properly. And I think that there is literally no point in doing research if you don't tell people about it. Now that can be the general public or probably more often your colleagues and other people around the world. But if you're just doing research in a vacuum, you're not accomplishing anything at all.

So that really hit me hard because I'm obviously quite passionate about space and I was nerding out during my PhD going, This is amazing. And I kind of hit this realisation of, What's my end game? Like `What am I trying to do if nobody knows about this, it was just a cool paper that no one's ever going to read?` So I wanted to make it more than that. So a little bit, that's where it started.

And I found out since then that I really enjoy talking to people and telling them about these cool topics. A lot of the time, that's just about space, not necessarily about astrometallurgy specifically. But that's been quite fun. And I really enjoy talking to students. A little bit recently what we've been doing is saying... I mentioned at the beginning we need more metallurgists. Like we desperately need more metallurgists graduating.

And one of the ways we've been really cheeky about this.... One of the ways we've been doing that is saying, "Hey", to undergrad students, "I want you to do a project on metallurgy". And I know that you have no interest in that because I'm competing with robotics and AI.

Like genuinely, there's so many cool things in engineering that the kids want to go and look at. What have I got up my sleeve that can compete with that? Well, space. Space is really cool. And so what we've been doing, we get them to do these projects that are - if you presented them without the lens of space, no one would be interested, right? No one's going to pick this up and go, Yeah, I really want to look at the thermal insulation properties of this particular type of dirt. Like, that's not cool. That's not fun.

But if I say, "Hey, this is a moon base and this is the wall of my moon base and I need to know if the astronauts are going to die", it's exactly the same project, same lab work, same everything. But now it's about space and that's cool. So what's been really fun is getting kids interested and excited about space and then shifting that framework a little bit to talk about the applications here on Earth. And I've just really enjoyed that journey. So I wouldn't consider it my full-time job. Like I'm a researcher foremost. But the communication side is something that I've been really enjoying.

Michael (00:16:48)

Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you framed it in a really good way there because, you know, what you're talking about is very abstract. You know, it is a completely new field and you've got to grapple with the challenge of how do I make this relevant or interesting to people?

Yeah. So, I mean, the space angle is really really fascinating. Is that something that is, you know, about extracting resources from asteroids in space to build a moon base? I mean, is that a realistic outcome or is it very abstract at this stage? What are some of the techniques I guess that you use to make it relevant to people?

Matt (00:17:38)

Yeah. So historically, I would say, "Look, it's been a little difficult". Because we talk about this idea of going to the moon and it feels a little sci-fi. And I would use the line, "we're taking the fi out of sci-fi", which in my brain sounds great, but it's probably a little much.

But recently... And by recently, I mean a month ago, NASA announced a $20 billion investment to build a moon base in 10 years. And that's something they're going to do. China is doing the same thing. So since 2018, this whole field has really taken off, which has been really crazy to see. I started my PhD. The Artemis program was announced. The Australian Space Agency was launched. Like everything just really started happening.

So it ended up being weirdly good timing completely by luck. But this is something that is going to happen. So it's going to take some time. It's going to take a decade, probably two. But it will be within our lifetime that we have people permanently on the moon living in these bases. And they will need to extract resources to make that happen.

So one of the biggest challenges with space and the reason we haven't done anything for 50 years is that it costs a lot of money to launch rockets. It's quite technically complicated. So the idea of establishing something like an Antarctic research base or an international space station on the moon is that we don't have to constantly be sending up these rockets. We can start doing things from space. And that just opens up a whole bunch of extra science, engineering, technology opportunities.

Jen (00:19:09)

So Matt, I'm listening to you and on the one hand I'm like, Well, that's just phenomenally amazing and fascinating to think that in my lifetime there could be people living on the moon. So there's no question that we know people find that extraordinary and that space is one of those topics that it's not easy to get people excited about.

But on the flip side, you know, I'm an ecologist by training and we are currently facing a biodiversity crisis, an extinction crisis, a climate crisis. You know, Earth is in pretty dire straits. I'm interested how you manage that as a communicator because I'm sure you've had that thrown at you.

You know, you've done a lot of media interviews. You know, I'm sure on the one hand people are deeply excited and invested in the whole idea of space travel and that's not hard to sell. But as a communicator and someone who's had a lot of experience working out what works and what doesn't work and communicating with non-scientific audiences, how do you manage that tricky kind of controversial balance between investing so much in space when really we need to be investing it in Earth? Is that hard to communicate?

Matt (00:20:17)

It is. I find the harder one is when people say, "Oh, the moon doesn't exist. And so why would you spend money on it?" That's a fun one that we've actually...

Jen (00:20:22)

Ooh. That's hard. Yes. So I believe the moon exists, we can take...

Matt (00:20:30)

That's a good start. Makes my job easier. Yeah, no, the ecology one is really important actually. And the other one is that people will... And we shy away a lot from saying, "Oh, we're doing mining on the moon". Because you get those negative connotations when it comes to mining as a word. And we're not really doing it, so I don't feel bad not using that word.

But in that sense, we have to say, "Look, being environmentally friendly is important". On the moon, that means something completely different. We don't have a biosphere on the moon. It's a completely different thing. So that's one that I have prepped answers for, right?

And the same with why are we spending money on space? We've got things to fix here on Earth. And my general response to that is space helps us fix those things. So, for example, CSIRO has this amazing program called AquaWatch, where we use Earth observation satellites to monitor our waterways and our oceans and things like that to work out is there pollution? Where's it coming from? Is it getting worse? So these types of problems that we have on Earth, they are important. And ironically, I think space is one of the ways we help fix that. It's not the only answer, but it's part of the solution.

If you talk to some slightly more eccentric people, they'll start talking about what's called space-based solar power, which is they want to build these massive solar farms in Earth orbit or maybe around the moon, that you could then beam energy down to Earth and that's your solution for green energy, right? And you don't have the day-night cycle issues that you have with normal solar power. So there's lots of really interesting implications to... I would say unlocking space as an asset. And it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with fixing the issues that we have here on Earth.

Jen (00:22:14)

I feel like that's probably taken you a bit of time and kind of confidence building to be able to talk about that though. Would that be fair? I mean, you sort of said you came from a background where you're a singer and you're a performer, but you hadn't necessarily had experience communicating about STEM. For anyone listening who's thinking, you know, I want to be a confident spokesperson for my field, is it just practice? Is it just: keep turning up and keep trying and dealing with difficult questions and seeing what works?

Matt (00:22:44)

Very much so I think. My approach to... I think prepared talks are easier in the sense that you write out your script, you refine it, you get feedback, you make it good. Great. So that would be Three Minute Thesis, FameLab, any of those types of competition style things. They're good fun. They're really good practice.

The challenge for me for real communication is the kind of live questions and answers sections. And the way I deal with that is I pre-prepare. I try and sit down and think through what are all of the worst questions they could ask me and how would I answer that, right?

So if they say, "Hey, is it even legal to go to the moon and mine stuff?" "Oh, that's a great question." And I don't want to be stuttering my way through an answer when that gets asked live on TV or something, right? So I sit down and I spend honestly hours, it's kind of embarrassing. But I'll try and come up with answers to these sticky questions. And the longer you do that, the more interviews you have, the more you prep for it, you just kind of have these off the cuff answers ready to go that are good enough, right?

So that's my approach to it. But I certainly talk to people and try and train people in SciComm. And I'm an introvert, right? Like I have to practice quite a lot and it's quite energy intensive for me to do these communication events. But I think it's really good. I think it's worth doing. And all of the talky talky stuff you can learn. So you can learn to not use your filler words. You can learn to slow down. You can learn to make it more engaging and change the tone of your voice and the speed, like all that stuff. Right? So I don't think there's anybody that can't do it is what I'm getting at there.

Michael (00:24:27)

Yeah, yeah.

Jen (00:24:27)

You know, I so want to ask you what did you think was going to be the worst question that we were going to ask you today that you felt like you had to prepare for? But we won't go there because we don't want to know how evil you really think that we are, so...

Matt (00:24:38)

Oh yeah. Dangerous, dangerous.

Michael (00:24:41)

Yeah. I'm really curious to ask, you know, what really excites you most about space exploration, you know. And whether there's a role for science communication and actually kind of guiding this new field of astrometallurgy in, you know, the right direction, because I guess there's a lot of promise.

But as Jen mentioned, you know, there's a lot of controversy as well. We don't want to waste resources and things like that. You know, what is the future that you're excited about and what is the role that you think effective and good science communication plays in realising that?

Matt (00:25:24)

It's a challenging trade-off, I think. Because it's easy... Space is really good for communication. It's a really good medium for STEM engagement in general. The general public love it. I mean, Artemis 2 landed recently. My last two weeks were just hectic. We had radio interviews and TV interviews and articles just every day. It was insane. And that was amazing. Like we had the communications people at Swinburne just loving life. This is amazing, right? All of our stats are up. It's great. Which is really really good. Don't get me wrong. That's amazing.

The reason that that's the case though is that NASA focuses quite a lot on STEM, on communication, on public engagement as opposed to someone like China who you probably haven't heard of, right? A lot of people don't know that China has their own space station, for example. We think there's only one up there and it's like, "No, no, there's multiple". So they're doing really good science and engineering and it's costing them a lot less because they're not trying to put these amazing cameras and like slot out time that could have been spent doing research on doing public engagement and stuff like that.

So it's a really interesting balance I think to make. I think it's really important that the public understand the type of cool science and engineering that goes on. And having these amazing photos of the moon... You know, Artemis II was just great to watch as a nerd but also as a communicator.

But there's certainly something to be said sometimes for maybe spending a little bit more time on actually getting the work done that you need to get done, rather than spending all of your time communicating. Having said that, again, something like Artemis II, they were in a capsule for 10 days. They didn't have that much to do. So spending as much time doing comms as you can is really good.

When it comes to astrometallurgy, ironically, while it is good to have the public aware of it, it's not really a career yet. Like I... there's maybe 10 researchers in the world around the world that are working on similar topics and I know them all. And to say to kids "Oh yeah, if you graduate in this thing you can become an astrophysicist" would be a little bit disingenuous of me because I probably want that job, right? So that's a bit challenging.

Having said that, for me the communications route for astrometallurgy is at a professional level. So myself and a couple of colleagues got invited over to South Korea last year to present a workshop on the topic, which was amazing. And so being able to share this new and interesting area of science with my colleagues and people around the world is probably more important as opposed to being excited about space, which is useful for STEM.

Michael (00:28:11)

Yeah, that's umm... Yeah, I think that must be very exciting, especially since you're seeing the field grow and more and more people are getting interested in it. And yeah, it's got lots of potential. And I feel like we could keep chatting about it all day.

We have reached that point in the podcast though Matt, where we do need to move to our quick questions to round out the interview. So quick questions, quick answers. I hope you're ready.

Matt (00:28:36)

Born ready. Let's go.

Michael (00:28:41)

Okay. The most ready guest ever. All righty. What is your favorite way to switch off after a long day of astrometallurgy?

Matt (00:28:52)

Crumpet. Movie.

Jen (00:28:57)

And what's on the crumpet? Jam or honey? That's very important.

Matt (00:29:00)

Honey. It has to be honey. Although as a Canadian, probably maple syrup if I, you know, [if it was possible].

Michael (00:29:04)

Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what movie are you watching with that crumpet?

Matt (00:29:09)

Oh, recently? Go and watch Project Hail Mary.

Jen (00:29:13)

Yes, one of our favourites. Okay, so this is very relevant then Matt, and this is a question that we are asking all of our guests this season but I feel like it's particularly relevant to you. And that is, if aliens land here on Earth tomorrow, what are you going to show them about your work? What do you want them to see about what you're doing?

Matt (00:29:32)

Probably hide it so that they don't know how advanced we are. If they underestimate us, maybe we have a chance. Maybe that was being darker than you expected.

Jen (00:29:41)

But what if they're like Rocky and they just want to?... But what if it's like Rocky and he just wants to collaborate and be friends?

Matt (00:29:47)

True. Then we could talk about vacuums and how cool vacuums are.

Jen (00:29:51)

Okay, perfect. For anyone who doesn't know what I just meant, Rocky is a central character in Project Hail Mary and I will provide no further spoilers.

Matt (00:29:59)

That's right.

Michael (00:29:59)

All right Matt, what is a hill that you are willing to die on in your field?

Matt (00:30:10)

We don't need humans in space, which is a hot topic, but we could probably do it with robots and it's a lot safer and a lot cheaper. But don't tell anybody I said that.

Jen (00:30:23)

Oh my gosh...

I was just thinking, Ooh, that's very controversial.

Matt (00:30:28)

It's a very hot take, yeah.

Michael (00:30:30)

Yeah, makes sense. Definitely.

Alrighty Matt. Last question. What is your very top tip for communicating effectively about science?

Matt (00:30:41)

Don't be afraid to simplify things beyond where technically you would say it's incorrect. I think sometimes as scientists, we know that we need to simplify them, but we try and keep it technically correct. And that can get in the way sometimes of communicating. So you can always clarify if something's a little weird, but you're better off saying it in a way that people can understand.

Michael (00:31:09)

Yeah, I guess oftentimes... Yeah, it's like, it gives people an entry point into a topic and they can find out more about it. You can't expect to explain everything to them in one example of communication.

Jen (00:31:24)

Yeah, I feel like that's a very astute observation because I think it's something that many of us are very frightened of. We're frightened of oversimplifying and being accused of not being accurate enough. But it's always that balance, right? Getting people engaged and then seeing where you can take the conversation.

Matt (00:31:40)

Yeah, exactly. And it's something you're taught, right? As you start doing a PhD, as you start writing papers, it's, you know, don't even write the word, et cetera, right? Specify the list of things. It's, you want to be technically accurate. You want to be very, hedge your bets when you need to. You say when you don't know.

So it's a way that you are taught to communicate, which in a professional context makes sense. But to the public, they don't need all those clarifications. They don't need all that stuff. They just, they want like a simple sentence that they can latch onto and understand.

Jen (00:32:10)

Well Matt, you've given us a lot of simple sentences today that I've latched onto and really enjoyed learning more about what you do. We're massively grateful to you for making the time.

And as I said, I'm just so delighted we found you because we might have never found you other than you reaching out to us and you are doing fascinating work and a lot of really great communicating about a topic that is complicated and I think has a lot of interesting takes for different people doing different things. So thank you for making the time to join us on Let's Talk SciComm.

Matt (00:32:42)

No, it's been happy little accidents and a great chat.

Michael (00:32:47)

It's been great. Thanks Matt.