Episode 147 - Interview with science communicator and Miscible founder Molly Patton

Transcript

Jen (00:00:10)

I am absolutely thrilled to welcome you to another episode of Let's Talk SciComm, my favorite place to be. I'm Jen Martin. And as always, I'm joined by my very good friend and colleague, Dr. Michael Wheeler. Hello Michael.

Michael (00:00:25)

Hello, Jen. I am very excited for today's episode because we have a fabulous guest joining us today that I can't wait to introduce to the listeners. We've both met Molly Patton, who is our guest. And Molly is the founder and the SciComm lead and producer at Miscible, a Melbourne-based science communication studio that's quickly made a name for itself in the way that it transforms complex research into visually striking and engaging stories.

And Molly's career path is also fascinating. So Molly is a former biomaterials post-grad who actually walked away from academia, which I think is really really interesting because of all the problems, essentially. And Molly describes these as the same three problems that keep cropping up again and again. So no time, no funding, and no shared language to explain why the work actually mattered, which I'd love to dig into in a little bit.

But Molly has a dual background in science and arts, the arts, and in particular photography. And Molly spent the last nine years leading creative teams to help researchers translate complex work into communication that in Molly's words is easy to understand and impossible to ignore, which I think is fantastic.

Jen (00:01:56)

Ooh, love it.

Michael (00:01:58)

And yeah, the impact speaks for itself. Molly's translation work has supported nearly $200 million in research funding in the past four years. Miscible has picked up multiple industry awards, including Best Science & Technology Content Creation Agency in Australia.

And I mentioned at the top that Jen and myself have met Molly a couple of times. I met Molly a couple of times at the Sci Comm Along events, these networking events that we've been running in Melbourne and we've had some interesting chats.

And I know that Molly is very passionate and Molly's a great advocate for science communication being recognised as a field in its own right and also for the idea that the science and the arts were really never meant to be separate disciplines in the first place. So Molly, a very warm welcome to the podcast.

Molly (00:02:49)

Thank you so much for having me. I'm just going to walk out now because that's done. Like... no need to go on. I can't top that. So thank you so much for such a warm introduction.

Jen (00:03:01)

Oh, we know you're going to top it. I mean, problems in academia, whatever could you be talking about? I just can't imagine. Surely there's going to be nothing for us to talk about today.

Molly (00:03:10)

No, I mean, we should just go have a coffee, right? It's fine. Everything's fine.

Michael (00:03:16)

Yes, yes exactly. But Molly, we'd like to start at the beginning. And I'd love for you to tell us about your background in science and art. I mean, have you always been interested in these two topics? And for you, have they been, you know, separate worlds always? Or, you know, is it something that you've really had to work to combine together?

Molly (00:03:43)

Yeah, that's a great starting point. I've always liked art. I like the creativity and the freedom to be able to kind of think up anything and with a pencil or a texta or even a stick in the dirt, you know, I can make something real. And I think that's really, really part of the human experience as I've gotten older, I've realised how important that is.

But, equally, I've always wanted to better understand the world around me. I had a lot of questions as a child. I was the one that would not stop asking, "But why?" And science was a really great discipline to be able to formally answer a lot of those questions. And then obviously, you know, spark more... like more questions from that as well. So the two were merging in ways, you know, like why does blue and yellow make green and things like that? You know, they were merging in some ways.

Photography is a great medium for the merging of that, particularly analogue photography, where we have mixed chemicals and we can get different results in developing photos and negatives. Even the way that light hits certain papers and the chemicals we use. There's so many different reactions and ways in which we can tell a story, both through what we capture with light and glass and refraction and physics and also the medium in which we present it. And that could be the paper it's printed on or it could be through metal. It could be the fact it's projected onto something.

And there's so many layers to storytelling that I've chosen photography as my medium. I can't paint, for... I just make a mess. So photography was a nice, clean medium. But I just really love it. And I think in those ways, we start to see you know, stories of science and science in the mediums themselves but it is largely a creative exercise.

But I liked both and I just kept choosing both as I went through school and I got to, you know, having to choose what I wanted to do for university. And against everybody's advice, I just kept choosing art and science. And luckily, I found a pathway that allowed me to do that through two degrees and I got to basically spend four years doing science and photography which was kind of cool. And I was getting degrees out of it.

And obviously, we come to graduating and I had to make a decision and really start to think about careers. And the university offered me a Master's position, a brand new Master's position that they were trialling in electromaterials, which I was able to spin as biomaterials through my chosen research areas.

And no one was hiring art students. It's really hard to get a job as an arts grad, particularly a generalist arts grad. And so I took the position and I'm so glad I did because obviously what's come out of it is this science communications career. And by that stage, I'd spent a lot of time in labs too. I did summer internships and as part of my undergrad spent a lot of time in labs. So it was kind of a nice natural progression.

But it really didn't take long for me to realise that there were a lot of problems in academia that you don't see in undergraduate. I can see Michael's nodding. Yeah, privy to a lot of conversations around meeting tables and at conferences and the frustrations that researchers were expressing about not having enough funding to do what they want to do, and spending so much time on funding applications that a lot of the time the research is put to the side and we're just on this constant hamster wheel of applying for funding.

And obviously, that creates a time crunch. So not having enough time to do what they want to do with the funding that they get and then the frustration around people not understanding the value of what their research can do and can have and the impact it can have.

And somewhere in my brain the dots just kind of connected that this is a communications problem. And you know, I can fix this basically was what ran through my head. And I was actually sitting in the Australian Academy of Science looking at all the presentations for the newly inducted fellows and sitting through, I can't remember how many PowerPoint presentations I sat through, but it was over two days.

And I've never... And I say this with so much admiration for the science, but I've never been so bored in my life. And I thought this cannot be, this was a nationally televised event. I thought this cannot be the face of these incredible discoveries and how it's being presented to the public.

And we're wondering why no one is interested or sees the value in it. And it was just simply that the way it's being presented is not reflecting the value of what the science is worth and what the science can do for us as a society. And that's a connection issue. And arts has a long history of connecting people and bringing people together. And it just kind of, it made sense to me.

And I just sort of followed my intuition and yeah, I sort of understood that research probably wasn't the path I wanted to go down. Once I saw these things, I couldn't unsee it. And then suddenly I was like, Okay, this is no longer fair to myself or the people supporting me to stay in this role. So I decided to walk away. And yeah, I started my own business about six months later in scientific visualisation I suppose. And literally fixing people's PowerPoints was how I started.

Michael (00:09:53)

Yeah.

Jen (00:09:54)

So Molly, before... Obviously we want to talk with you a lot about Miscible and the work that you're doing now, but I'd love to just talk a little bit more about your kind of decision up until that time when you started Miscible.

Because I'm interested... So you talked about you know, no time, no funding and no shared language with which to kind of communicate purpose and meaning and impact of the work.

Was there one of those that really kind of, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back for you? Or were you looking at people working in this research world and academia and just thinking you know, that, that's not the life for me. I guess what's driving my question is I imagine there are people listening who see the same problems and feel the same concern about chasing that job.

But they don't have the light at the end of the tunnel that you had which was well hang on, I have all of these visual communication skills that I think can help me fix that, so here's a really logical new thing for me to immediately step into. For someone who's listening who really wants to be in research and doesn't have an immediate alternative appear to them, talk to us a little bit more about those problems and how you experience them.

Molly (00:11:08)

Yeah, I think um... I mean, I know I probably only spent about six months in that master's program, but these were people that I'd known for years through different research programs throughout undergrad. And I really cared about them. And, you know, I think I was important to them as well.

And that personal connection and seeing their pain and frustration that they're going through... And they're, you know, 20, 30 years in some cases ahead of me, I just thought, I can't do this for that long and get to that point.

And I really felt like the impact I wanted to have and the problems I wanted to solve were not, the path wasn't in a way going to make that easy. There's a lot of hoops that researchers have to jump through. And I saw that in the faces of like my colleagues and my friends. And I was like, I can't do this, but I wanna help. And that was when I sort of decided to find a different way and find a different pathway.

And to be honest, that pathway's not clear. There's no real clear pathways to full-time professional science communication, which I do think is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I mean, even a couple of weeks ago, I was at an event and an undergrad started chatting with me. When I say undergrad, I mean this is now April. Or May actually, it's the 1st of May, but they've been at uni like three months and they came up to me and they said, "how do I get to do what you do?"

And the story that I just shared, I don't think is a good enough answer for the next generation. I really don't. We need to do better and find a way to create more concrete and clear pathways to this profession because it is a profession.

I know I'm probably arguing with the converted here, but it is a profession. It is a highly specialised profession in a very generalist way. It's an interesting sort of paradox where we have a generalist skill set. But it's a highly specialised way in which we translate complex knowledge and distill that down into accessible media formats for everyone and for any audience.

And I think we do need to have serious conversations around the importance of that and the value of that. And whilst I think it's really, really important for researchers who are in research and have great careers to be doing science communication and doing it well, I think there is a little bit of caution that we need to have around how we talk about and refer to science communication in those contexts, and start maybe treating it in conversations less as a side gig and a skill within research and more as an industry as a whole.

And I think changing that mindset is a really good start to opening the door to conversations around more structured career pathways and potentially even talks of a funded governing body for science communication, like what you would see in other areas like youth homelessness or other sectors where there is funding and there are pipelines to create programs. And I think that would be an incredible way to leave science communication for the next generation.

Jen (00:14:40)

You're not going to find any argument from us Molly, 100%. But I love your vision and I love the fact that you are taking that step back from the kind of day-to-day challenges and frustrations and work and thinking at a more systemic level about what could change.

But I'd love to explore a bit more about I guess kind of your day job. So you're on the record as saying that you don't think researchers are bad communicators but researchers tend to work in a system that really makes effective and meaningful and engaging communication really difficult.

So first I guess I'd love to hear your thoughts on what that system is. But then secondly, you know, if a researcher comes to you because they have a message that they want to get out into the world, or anyone, it doesn't have to be a researcher, anyone with some STEM information that they need to get out into the world.

And either they feel that their work is currently being misunderstood, or it's being devalued, or it's just not visible to the right people, like where do you begin? What do those conversations look like where you first start working with someone? So sorry, that's a double-barreled question.

Molly (00:15:49)

That's okay. I can handle double barrels.

Jen (00:15:52)

Woohoo!

Molly (00:15:53)

So, to walk through a scenario, I guess one of the things that I love about Miscible that perhaps differentiates us from other creative agencies is we are a problem first agency.

So people come to us with a problem and we curate the solution that we think is best and we decide on the mediums based on that solution. So we sort of reverse engineer if you like. Whereas a lot of creative agencies are disciplined first. So they will be an animation studio or a web development or a graphic design studio.

I'm in a very privileged position where I have a huge network and I work with some of the best creatives in the world. And I can bring in anyone to solve any problem and I will hang my hat on that.

So typically the kinds of researchers that come to us, they have a problem with funding. They need to get a grant or they've missed out on a grant a couple of years in a row and they really want to get it this time.

And we see that grant space is getting harder and harder. You know, with success rates as low as 8%. You know, [that's] less than one in 10. I mean, would you enter a competition where the odds are less than one in 10 and then spend 40 hours on an application to have a shot at that?

Jen (00:17:16)

That's pretty awful, isn't it?

Michael (00:17:19)

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Yeah.

Molly (00:17:20)

Don't trigger anyone.

Michael (00:17:23)

That's what happens, yeah.

Molly (00:17:26)

But these are the serious stats that researchers are facing. And I don't think it's okay. But we know that stories and visuals in learning can improve the way people resonate with content, particularly highly technical content.

And we see that in changes in biochemistry, in our brains. We've seen it in the way our brains can be seen, so measured, to process visuals faster than just paragraphs of text. So we can, whilst it's a, largely a qualitative art form, we can measure it with science now and we can see that visuals do make a difference.

And we're talking about improving the success rates of 8% up to say 25%, you know, those visuals really do help tip the scales. And I think any researcher will take any percentage advantage that they can get right now just to get that edge.

And that's where Miscible comes in. We just help tip the scales of probability to connect with those grant assessors and make it easy to understand and impossible to ignore, as the tagline go.

Michael (00:18:38)

Yeah no, it's...

Jen (00:18:39)

Yeah, that's a great tagline. I really like the tagline. Because if something truly is impossible to ignore, you've won the jackpot. You've got an audience who's actually engaged and invested and paying attention. And from that point, then you can use your storytelling to have all sorts of great connections. But that idea of something being impossible to ignore, I love it.

Molly (00:19:05)

Thank you. It did take some workshopping, I will say that.

Michael (00:19:09)

That tagline is impossible to ignore. So yeah, very meta. You know, and you're talking about grant applications there, I think that is something that a lot of researchers struggle with, you know, myself included, the amount of time that goes into them.

You know, what are some of the common mistakes that you see researchers making when they're trying to write grant applications? And you know, you mentioned storytelling there as a potential solution.

Storytelling is a really big term and there are so many I suppose elements to storytelling or ways that we can have narrative in the way that we're communicating. And I'd love to know what does storytelling mean to you in the context of helping researchers tell their story, say in a grant application?

Molly (00:20:03)

Yeah. I mean, in a grant application, it's a lot more straightforward. We don't want to add in too many plot twists and things like that in terms of a narrative.

But when we talk about grant applications, we're talking about structuring the grant and the words and the visuals in a way that makes sense and flows logically and ideally succinctly, although sometimes in grant applications that can fall away.

And the reality is they are ugly documents. They're not nice to look at. They're hideous. I don't like them. And I have lots of thoughts on that. But... because it makes for a poor experience for the grant assessor as well when they're just bombarded with this page full of text, you know, border to border.

So the idea of the visuals is, you know, if you're 40 grant applications in, if we're putting ourselves in the grant assessor's shoes, and someone suddenly has this beautiful graphic on page one that they can read from start to finish across the page or down the page, however you want to structure it, to me that's storytelling.

It gives them a way to see the whole picture almost like a table of contents and it's an anchor point for them to refer back to as they're going through the text. And that visual is structured in a way that there's a hierarchy.

So that's where we're starting to pull in things like design elements and principles that we can use to direct the reader or in this case the grant assessor to read what we want first and second.

And then we can actually curate their experience of engaging with that graphic in a way that they will consume the right information in the right order so they come to the right understanding. So there's a lot of psychology in it as well, but we can create an architecture within graphics.

And that could be as simple as a governance chart or a flow chart where it's quite obvious where we want the logic to go. Or being something a little bit more abstract, like a journal cover for example often has a story within it, but it's less obvious.

There's no arrows or actually I should say there shouldn't be arrows in a journal cover. No arrows in journal covers please. Yeah, they're not figures, they're artworks.

And so there's different criteria for different kinds of graphics. But all of them will have a way of guiding the viewer or the assessor as I said in this case to a conclusion that we want.

Michael (00:22:50)

Yeah.

Jen (00:22:50)

So Molly, do you feel like the biggest mistake?... Michael was talking before about mistakes that researchers make. It sounds like one of the biggest most basic mistakes is just the classic too much information all at once. Is that part of it?

Molly (00:23:04)

Very much so. Researchers by nature... and I think it's wonderful... are very passionate and they want everyone to know everything about their research.

But grants are very specific in the criteria that they require. And it's very much adhering to and really showcasing the bits of the research that hit that criteria.

So it makes it really easy for an assessor to go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yes, I can't refute this. The idea is you make an irrefutable argument for them to say no. So the louder you can make all the things that they're looking for, the better.

Jen (00:23:42)

I feel like there's very good messages in that for all sorts of pieces of communication. One of our favourite colleagues who we've interviewed a few times on this podcast is Dr Jonathan O'Donnell and he's got many many many years of working at different universities supporting researchers to apply for funding.

And he has a t-shirt that says read the guidelines. Because the idea is you need to know what people are looking for and then you need to make it exceptionally easy for them to find those things.

Molly (00:24:08)

Yeah, he is absolutely correct. But then when we're looking at taking that information [and] applying it to different audiences, then you know, the general public will be looking for a different set of criteria...

Jen (00:24:19)

100%.

Molly (00:24:20)

With perhaps policymakers and government. And so, one graphic is not a be-all and end-all solution. And that's where we start to think about design systems and processes.

And so part of what we do is we work with researchers to develop systems where they can maybe reuse certain aspects but understand the different audiences and where their graphics are relevant and where they might need to be adjusted or tweaked or perhaps in some cases redone to make sure their research resonates with that audience.

Jen (00:24:52)

Yeah. And I think to some extent, you know, in this context, grant applications are easy, very much in inverted commas in the sense at least you know you've been told very explicitly exactly what's being looked for.

But often we don't know exactly what our audiences are looking for and we have to make some really educated thoughtful assumptions or guesses or do a whole lot of exploratory work to find out what our audience actually does want to find out about because there are no guidelines.

Molly (00:25:18)

Exactly right and that's... You hit the nail on the head. You can either do the market research and go out and ask people what they're looking for or we are really working to educate guesses and assumptions.

And there's a really good saying about assumptions and what happens when we make them. So it's, it is a balancing act because it all is either time or an investment in other parties like Miscible to do it. And obviously funding is a problem so we end up on this cycle of coming up against barriers to...

Michael (00:25:49)

I feel like we could continue chatting indefinitely. But Molly, we have reached the point in the podcast where we'd like to shift gears now a little bit and move to our quick questions.

Michael (00:26:05)

Quick questions, quick answers. Don't think about it too much. Are you ready?

Molly (00:26:12)

Yeah, let's do it.

Michael (00:26:13)

Okay.

Jen (00:26:13)

Talking about trauma, we really hope that this won't be in any way traumatic.

Michael (00:26:18)

That's a good segue.

Molly (00:26:19)

You take me right back to high school.

Michael (00:26:20)

All righty Molly, what is your favorite way to switch off after a long day?

Molly (00:26:24)

Ooh, exercise. Definitely exercise. Yep. Love walking with Kodak or hitting the gym. Really great way to wind down, get some endorphins going. Yeah, can't beat it.

Michael (00:26:38)

Yep.

Jen (00:26:38)

Strong relate to that. Absolutely.

Next question Molly. Let's just imagine that aliens are going to land on Earth tomorrow and you could show them one aspect of the work that you do. What do you think you'd show them?

Molly (00:26:51)

Ooh, that's a good question. I think I would probably show them all the... I have a folder on my computer of all the text messages I get like thanking me or things that I can't necessarily put in a Google review.

But I would show them that and I would show them that you know, this is the kind of difference that we're making and the impact that we're having and it's helping people.

And that's the folder I go to when I'm having a bad day or thinking I'm doing a bad job and I can't get anything right.

And I think that's the reminder that what we're doing is far more than just good graphic design or good design. It's really... it's helping people and it's making a difference.

Michael (00:27:35)

That's great.

Jen (00:27:36)

Yeah, that's lovely.

Michael (00:27:30)

Yeah, such a good idea. I think we often forget about those instances and collecting them in a folder is a great way to stay motivated.

Okay Molly, what is your top tip? Your very top tip for communicating effectively about science?

Molly (00:27:58)

Ooh. Okay. I've got so many. I'm like going through my Rolodex and trying to find them. I think if... It's kind of a general piece of advice and a tip. It's not like a, you know, do these three things and it will be successful.

But I think it's important to remember to be human first and scientist second. That would be my number one tip. People connect with people and the science will be heard if they're connecting with the person that they're talking to and the person that's speaking. And I think science has a very... Through the way it has to be presented quite quantitatively and objectively, it's lost its ability to be vulnerable.

And it's kind of, there's a fear of being wrong sometimes. And I think that that's not conducive to connecting with people. People want to see vulnerability. They want to see that you're not invulnerable when you do make mistakes. And it's important to embrace that and to own it and not to think of it as a shameful thing.

And if you can find the balance in that and find a way to tell your, the story of your science through a personal lens that has all these trials and tribulations, I think you'll go far in lots of people hearing about your research and how important it is.

Michael (00:29:27)

Yeah.

Jen (00:29:29)

I mean at the end of the day it's about human connection, isn't it?

Molly (00:29:32)

Absolutely.

Jen (00:29:32)

And the vast majority of people working in STEMM are driven by wanting to improve the world in some way. So, yeah, I think that's really fantastic advice Molly.

And I'm absolutely delighted that we managed to connect with you. It's been such a delight to hear more about your work and the decisions that you've made and where it's led you to do this incredibly impactful work.

I feel very excited that yeah, we got to meet you and chat with you today. So thank you so much for your time and we will put lots of relevant things into our show notes so people can find you if they'd like to see more of what you're doing.

Molly (00:30:07)

Thank you so much. And right back at you. It's a real delight to have connected with you over recent months. And I'm looking forward to the next Sci Comm Along.

Jen (00:30:16)

Woo-Hoo!

Michael (00:30:16)

Yes! Yes. Check us out on LinkedIn. But thank you so much Molly, it's really been a wonderful chat. And what a lovely message to finish on.

Your insights are really fantastic. I think lots of people will, it will resonate with lots of people. So much appreciated.

Molly (00:30:32)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the platform and the good chats.

Michael (00:30:55)

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love you to tell a friend about the podcast or leave us a review. And you can reach out to us on social media.

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And also a big thank you to our production team, Steven Tang and Madeleine Kelly.