Rappe also emphasizes the variety that comes with the job. “Each day is different,” she says. “Some days I talk to faculty members or graduate students from Brown University’s School of Medicine, School of Public Health, or basic Biology division about an upcoming paper and write a press release explaining their findings and the implications of their research in a clear and engaging manner. Some days I direct reporters on deadline to faculty members who can answer their questions ranging from teen stress and medical oddities to aging and the impact of gun violence. Other days I help plan how the university will announce a major grant or give faculty and staff advice for talking about their research on camera. Most days are a mix of the first two, while reading faculty manuscripts to see if they’d make good press releases and tweeting a bit.”
Mollie Rappe is a science writer at North Carolina State University (Photo | Mollie Rappe).
The broad array of both activities and subject matter mean you’ll need to learn a lot about a given subject quickly but will then move on to cover the next story. Rappe has an analogy she uses when explaining her career as a PIO compared to her past work as a scientist: “As a science writer I get to be a hummingbird and flit in, find out the most interesting and impactful results of months or years of research, and then fly off to write about it in a clear and engaging manner before flitting onto the next nectar-rich story. As a scientist I felt more like a woodpecker, banging my head against a tree in the hopes of someday finding a measly grub.”
Is it right for you?
So what kind of person makes a good PIO? Both of the women I talked to emphasized a love of learning and an interest in a wide range of fields as being essential. “It helps if you enjoyed that steep phase of the learning curve where you knew next to nothing about your dissertation topic,” Smith says. “I’m a botanist by training. But now I might find myself writing about quarks, brains, superbugs, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity. Most of my assignments deal with things I haven’t studied in 20 years, or never studied at all.” She adds, “It should go without saying, but it also helps if you like to write. I really loved the end stages of my dissertation: writing it up, responding to edits. If you like that part of academia, you might like being a PIO too.”
Rappe also mentions the communication and relationship-building skills a PIO needs to work with both researchers and the press. “Being able to understand what a reporter is asking for and if it is achievable (e.g., ‘Sorry, we don’t have any doctors doing clinical trials involving CRISPR, but we have many researchers doing pre-clinical research using CRISPR, will that work for your news segment?’) is a helpful skill to hone,” she says.
“A person who is interested in being a PIO should have an interest in building and maintaining relationships with faculty members–some of whom cannot comprehend why on earth you left academia–as well as an acceptance for a certain amount of bureaucracy. The ability to juggle multiple different stories and long-term projects with urgent requests is also critical.”
Finding your way in
As with many academia-adjacent careers, there is no single route into working as a PIO. While some may come from an education in science communication specifically, for both Smith and Rappe it was a matter of realizing that research wasn’t the right fit and trying to find something that would allow them to keep learning about science.
Smith first did a post-doc teaching writing to science and engineering students then ran the news office at a research centre while doing some freelance science and technology writing for a local newspaper. For those trying to get a foot in the door, she suggests starting by building up a few clips to show potential employers.
“Find out who covers research in your university press office or alumni magazine and ask them for an informational interview,” says Smith. “Offer to write a guest post for their research blog if they have one. Google what makes a great story pitch. Anything you can do to network with other PIOs and show that you can write in a journalistic style (and get your writing published) will help.”
Rappe began by using American Association for the Advancement of Science’s myIDP, a free tool that helps people with a PhD in science explore their career options. She undertook an internship writing for the monthly magazine of a scientific society before she even completed her PhD, taking a three month leave of absence to do so.
“I absolutely loved my internship and the chance to talk with researchers from all over the U.S. and the world about the research that had taken them years to complete and then figure out the best way to explain it to a general audience,” she says, explaining that the internship led her to interview as a PIO with a major American defence research laboratory the same week she defended her PhD thesis.
For those interested in her line of work, she says, “The first thing you need to do is determine if you like writing about research. You can see if your national professional society or university has a need for freelance or volunteer writers. Try to write about research that is as far away from your own area of research as possible to remind yourself what jargon is and give yourself a feel for how to gain enough knowledge to write clearly in an area where you’re not an expert. In addition to giving you a feel for a large chunk of the job of a PIO, this will give you the clips necessary to get a job. ” Like Smith, she also recommends informational interviews with those already in the field.
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