About Me

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I'm an assistant professor of neuroscience at Washington State University in Vancouver, where I use tiny zebrafish (the size of an eyelash!) as a model system to study human hearing loss and how we can prevent it. I'm also a long-time Toastmaster and I teach communication workshops. This blog represents the merging of my two passions - science and communication, which has really become one central passion - the science of communication. There's a revolution in science right now...the idea that we scientists should sometimes leave the lab and talk about what we do, and why we do it, to real people. This blog looks at why we should do this, and how to actually talk about science with non-scientists (and with each other!). Portions of this blog are also featured on Qualia, the AAAS MemberCenter blog site.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Questions upon questions


The French Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once said, “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”  Still, as scientists we often have to answer questions as well…usually at the end of our talks when we’re tired and simply wishing for a nap, or perhaps a beer.