On Tuesday, Dec. 10, NC State’s Research Leadership Academy organization hosted a forum in Hunt Library to discuss methods of promoting and disseminating research in unconventional ways, including social media.

Research Communications Lead Matt Shipman discussed publishing research on social media, using various platforms, and balancing research and science communications with three NC State research faculty members: Adrian Smith, head of the Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab; Derek Ham, assistant professor for the College of Design; and Katie Mack, assistant professor for the College of Sciences.

Smith emphasized the importance of finding a social media platform that is interesting and will motivate scientists to keep posting on it even if there are no followers. Smith has a YouTube channel for his research lab called Ant Lab.

“For me, it was figuring out what could I be most effective at and what will I not be effective at,” Smith said. “Then, what am I interested in? What’s going to carry me through if no one watches it?”

Smith advised finding something that will fulfill the person individually so the communication does not feel like extra work. 

Mack, who has a Twitter account dedicated to her work in theoretical physics, said that she chose to use Twitter because it is quick, and unlike Smith’s research, hers does not have many “pretty pictures.” She said that her pictures would most likely be math equations, which are not visually appealing. 

Shipman said his office provides resources to graduate students and faculty when they want to promote their research.

“It’s not where somebody brings their work to us and we put it into some sort of widget-stamping machine and deal with everything the same way,” Shipman said. “It’s a conversation where we find out what your needs are and figure out what we can do together to try to accomplish that.”

Shipman said other academic departments can also help researchers find the right publications.

Another topic of discussion was how younger faculty have started to use social media even though it is not a typical part of academia. Ham said at first he used Facebook, but switched to Instagram after his graduate students advised it.

“A year ago, I wasn’t on Instagram at all, and my students looked at me because I kept on doing Facebook stuff, and they were like, ‘Dr. Ham, we’re not on Facebook,’” Ham said. “For me in my lab, they’re part of the process. This is a really valuable tool, to get the next generation of students into our lives and into our college, who frankly are looking at [social media] more often than those highly published journals.”

Mack said one of her current Ph.D. students decided to pursue working with her because of her Twitter account. The student applied to NC State once she found out Mack was moving to Raleigh. 

The panel also addressed issues with bridging scientific research and social media, one of these being the line between research and personal and political views. Shipman said it was up to the account owner to decide how much of their personal life to share. 

“I think it’s very much an artificial distinction, because science and history of science is inherently political,” Shipman said. “So really the question is, ‘How comfortable are you being a public advocate, period?’ Professionally, the only requirement is that you make clear that you’re advocating your capacity as an individual citizen or adult and not on behalf of the university, but as long as you’re doing that, then you’re fine to advocate for whatever your position is in politics.”

Ham said he keeps a separate Instagram account which is linked to NC State for his lab, so he can keep his lab posts separate from his personal ones. 

All of the panelists agreed that social media is a beneficial tool to communicate research to the public.

“I don’t see this time spent making your stuff approachable, accessible and static as time wasted at all.” Smith said. “It’s like, ‘Man, I put so much time into this, I want other people to see this and derive joy out of this besides the 12 colleagues who may or may not be like, plotting their ways to prove me wrong.’”