Hear from diverse perspectives about how to communicate science through storytelling!

I organized a full-day symposium, “Science Through Narrative: Engaging Broad Audiences,” with invited and contributing presenters from multiple scientific and artistic disciplines. This event took place as a society-wide offering at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology (SICB) in San Francisco in January 2018.

See below for photos, sketch notes, and open access papers from the symposium!

ElShafie was the primary organizer and the first speaker in the society-wide symposium “Science Through Narrative: Engaging Broad Audiences” at the 2018 Annual SICB Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

A lightsaber was used to keep the speakers on time, including Glen McIntosh (right), an Animation Director at Industrial Light & Magic.

Presenters and contributors of the “Science Through Narrative: Engaging Broad Audiences” symposium at the 2018 Annual SICB Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

ElShafie led a debriefing with symposium participants during a reception hosted at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, CA.

Presenters and contributors of the “Science Through Narrative: Engaging Broad Audiences” symposium, pictured here at a reception hosted at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, CA.

“This symposium completely changed my perspective on crafting presentations and communicating my science. The tips and advice I learned have paid dividends in many of my professional endeavors. For example, I won a prestigious award for a talk I gave at a scientific meeting in 2021, and I believe it was the narrative approach to my presentation that helped it resonate with both the judges and the attendees. ”

— Dr. Lucas N. Weaver, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Kent State University