Category Archives: SO’10

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Tom Levenson is the Director of the Graduate Program in the Writing and Humanistic Studies program at MIT. He blogs on the Inverse Square blog and tweets. I interviewed Tom last year. At the conference, Tom will co-moderate the session From Blog to Book: Using Blogs and Social Networks to Develop Your Professional Writing.
Val Jones, MD is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC, a health education company devoted to providing scientifically accurate health information to consumers. She also blogs at Science-Based Medicine and tweets. At the conference, Dr.Val will co-moderate the session on Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything
Deepak Singh is a business developer and technologist. He works at Amazon Web Services, blogs on business|bytes|genes|molecules, produces Coast to Coast Bio Podcast, helps run Bioscreencast and tweets. I interviewed Deepak last year. At the next conference, Deepak will co-lead the session on Podcasting in science.
Katie Mosher is the Communications Director at North Carolina Sea Grant and the managing editor of the Coastwatch magazine.
Elisabeth Montegna is finishing her PhD in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at University of Chicago. She has a blog and I interviewed her last year.
Lucy Ringland is a web developer working currently as the President of Big Kid Enterprises, Inc.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Sunday, January 17 at 9:00-10:05am:
A. Earth Science, Web 2.0+, and Geospatial Applications – Jacqueline Floyd and Chris Rowan
Description: We will discuss online and mobile applications for earth science research, including solid earth, ocean, and atmosphere subtopics. Current topics planned for discussion are Google Earth for geospatial applications, iPhone and other mobile applications, collaboration tools such as Google Wave, and cloud computing platforms such as Amazon’s EC2 for computationally intensive applications such as seismic tomography or climate modeling. Also, we’ll discuss web analytics: defining and measuring what makes a science website or online application successful. Discuss here.
B. Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Session: Engaging underrepresented groups in online science media – David Kroll and Damond Nollan
Description: The conference timing may keep some attendees away in their hometowns participating in local MLK activities. Therefore, we are introducing a session to promote the principles of Dr King in the context of online science communication: promoting social justice and eliminating racism in areas ranging from healthcare to scientific career paths. We plan to take a different angle from the blogging about gender/race session: how do we cultivate emerging science writers from underrepresented groups to promote science, for example, in areas of health disparities (i.e., diabetes, substance abuse, prostate cancer) and in providing opportunities to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. Locally in Durham, North Carolina, efforts are underway through the non-profit Kramden Institute to start by making newly-refurbished computers available to honors students in underserved school districts as a model for what can be done nationally. We’ll also be represented by local IT and social media folks who are setting up the infrastructure to make internet access more affordable and accessible. Any advice, comments or ideas are welcome from attendees, especially if you engage with underrepresented groups in your respective line of online or offline work. Discuss here.
C. Open Access and Science Career Hurdles in the Developing world – Tatjana Jovanovic-Grove and Jelka Crnobrnja Isailovic
Description: Changes in a country in neverending transition are affecting deeply both PhD students and qualified researchers. To enter or to stay in Serbian scientific community depends only on participation in journals positioned on SCI list. Moreover, ranking system is not stable, it could be changed quickly upon decision of small group of scientists already established as tenured. More than thinking about challenging topics in science that are worthy to work on, scientists in Serbia should calculate what and where to publish with the minimum of costs in order to reach as high score as possible, and ensure payment for the following months. Changing ranking system amongst scientists, as well Bologna accords implementation in practice: what are thoughts amongst students and researchers at two institutions in Serbia: IBISS and Faculty of Natural Sciences University of Nis. What are the guidelines to help overcoming obstacles in this process? Are promotion and approval of the Open Access journals the best helping hands in overcoming obstacles and bringing Serbian science where it belongs? The results of discussed session ScienceOnline in 2009 and points of view of researchers in natural sciences. Importance of the short time in publishing in open science with urgency of protecting endangered species and habitats. Discuss here.
D. Broader Impact Done Right – Karen James, Kevin Zelnio, Miriam Goldstein, Rick MacPherson, Jeff Ives and Beth Beck
Description: Often, scientists fulfill their “broader impacts” requirements in mediocre ways that appear to reach a broad audience, but in effect have very little impact. Recent expeditions have used a multifaceted approach to cast as wide a net as possible using established online resources like blogs and microblogs, audio and video podcasts, traditional and new media. These resources are easy to share and spread the mission of the expeditions and the excitement of discovery and the science being done in real time. We will take examples and experiences from the recent SEAPLEX and Darwin and the Adventure expeditions as well as the sustained efforts of NASA and NEAQ. We will explore such questions as “What are the elements of successful short- and long-term online science outreach projects and programs?” and “Does the focus on specific (and often peripheral) debates dominating so much of the science blogosphere attract or disenchant potential readers of/participants in online science?” Discuss here.
E. Science online talks between generations– Beatrice Lugger and Christian Rapp
Description: In huge meetings around the world several organizations try to initiate a dialogue between top scientists and young researchers -the Lindau Meetings of Nobel Laureates are one of them providing numerous opportunities for an exchange of ideas and thoughts between young researchers and Nobel Laureates. The idea is to support this dialogue with a special platform in the web, where current science topics can be discussed and the talks and thoughts can be followed by a broader public. We’d like to discuss how one can initiate a continued communication process even between two meetings. Which internet/social web tools might be useful to bridge the communication habits of a younger generation with that of an older generation? Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Walter Jessen is a cancer biologist and bioinformatician. He is the editor at Highlight HEALTH and Next Generation Science. And he tweets. At the conference, Walter will lead the session on Medicine 2.0 and Science 2.0–where do they intersect? and the session on Medical journalism.
Sabine Vollmer, former science reporter for Raleigh News and Observer, now writes and tweets for Science in the Triangle
Sarah Crespi is a writer and editor and is currently the Mutlimedia Science Communication Specialist at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. And she tweets.
Shanawa Richardson works in the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Sarah Jeong is the Science Librarian at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University.
Danielle Baldwin runs Sociia Internet Communications and is on Twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Cynthia Allen is the Editor and Writer in the Office of Science Education at National Institutes of Health where she blogs on their SciEd blog. She is also on Twitter.
Laurel Bacque is in charge of communications, a blogger, and the online community manager for the IceCube – the South Pole neutrino-hunting telescope. And she is on Twitter.
Craig McClain is the Assistant Director of Science at National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and he blogs on Deep Sea News (which once was on scienceblogs.com, co Craig is a SciBling). At the conference, Craig will do a demo of NESCent, online efforts.
Corie Lok is, after several years of building and running the Nature Network, now the editor of Nature’s Research Highlights section. And you can find her on Twitter.
Mark MacAllister is the Project Coordinator for Field Trip Earth. At the conference, Mark will do a demo of FieldTripEarth.
Leah Gordon works at MEASURE Evaluation, Carolina Population Center, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She blogs and tweets.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Rick MacPherson is the Director of Conservation Programs at Coral Reef Alliance, and a blogger. I interviewed Rick last year. At this conference, Rick will co-moderate the session on Broader Impact Done Right.
Pamela Blizzard is the Executive Director of the Contemporary Science Center, this year’s institutional partner of the conference. She is also on Twitter.
Eric Roston is a journalist, a writer, a Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions of Duke University, Washington office and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. He blogs on The Climate Post and Carbon Age and tweets.
Sarah Crespi is a science journalist and the Multimedia Science Communications officer for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Jeremy Yoder is a PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Idaho. He blogs and tweets.
Sonia Stephens is a biologist and a student in the Texts and Technology Program at the University of Central Florida where she is studying the role of writing technologies on the development of science.

The winners of the NESCent blogging competition were announced yesterday.
What do the winners get? A travel grant to come to ScienceOnline2010 in January! Yes, we kept those two spots open for the winners.
And the winners are Christie Lynn Wilcox (for the post When Good Genes Go Bad) and Jeremy Yoder (for the post How it does a body good: The selective advantage of drinking milk depends where you drink it).
w00t!
Congratulations to the winners….and see you both in January!

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Jean-Claude Bradley is a professor of Chemistry at Drexel University. He runs the Open Notebook Science wiki for his lab, blogs on Useful Chemistry and tweets. He is one of two people who will not just attend for the fourth time, but also present for the fourth time. At the next conference, Jean-Claude will give an Ignite-style talk “Games in Open Science Education”, and co-moderate the session on Open Notebook Science. You can also read the interview with Jean-Claude from last year.
Carol Anne Meyer is the Business Development and Marketing Manager at CrossRef and she is on Twitter.
Kevin Zelnio is a researcher at the Marine Conservation Molecular Facility at Duke University’s Marine Lab. He blogs on The Other 95%, on Deep Sea News and on The Online Laboratory of Kevin Zelnio and he tweets. I interviewed Kevin a couple of years ago. At the conference, Kevin will co-moderate the session on Broader Impact Done Right and do a demo of Darwin and the Adventure – The (i)Movie.
Hilary Maybaum is a freelance science writer and editor. She runs i.e. science and tweets.
Steven Koch is a professor of physics at the University of New Mexico’s Center for High Technology Materials. He blogs and tweets. At the conference, Steve will co-moderate the session on Open Notebook Science.
Jan McColm is the managing editor of Genetics in Medicine. Read a nice interview with Jan here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Scott Baker is the Fisheries Specialist at North Carolina Sea Grant. If you are a reader of my blog, you may remember I blogged about his use of texting and twitter to collect data from fishermen about fish-catch. At the conference, Scott will co-moderate the session on Citizen Science and do a demo of Text message based angler reporting method: twitter and fishcatch.
Catharine Zivkovic is a writer and a critical care nurse at a major teaching/research hospital with a background in philosophy and interest in bioethics. She is a twitterer and an occasional blogger. Oh, and around these parts, she sometimes refers to herself as The Bride of Coturnix.
Allison Bland is the Communications Fellow at Research!America. She tweets both as researchamerica and as herself.
Donna Krupa is the Communications Director for the American Physiological Society and is on Twitter.
Michael Clarke is the founder of the Clarke Publishing Group. And he is on Twitter.
Harvey Krasny is the Founder of CaroTech, LLC, Biotech Consulting.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 4:30 – 5:35pm:
A. Online Reference Managers – John Dupuis and Christina Pikas moderating, with Kevin Emamy, Jason Hoyt, Trevor Owens and Michael Habib (Scopus) in the ‘hot seats’.
Description: Reference managers, sometimes called citation managers or bibliography managers, help you keep, organize, and re-use citation information. A few years ago, the options were limited to expensive proprietary desktop clients or BibTeX for people writing in LaTeX. Now we’ve got lots of choices, many that are online, support collaboration and information sharing, and that work with the authoring tools you use to write papers. In this session we’ll hear from representatives of some of these tools and we’ll talk about the features that make them useful. Together we’ll discuss some tips and tricks and maybe even best practices. Discuss here.
B. Art and Science: Visual Metaphors- Glendon Mellow and Felice Frankel
Description: How has our vocabulary of metaphors changed in the wake of scientific inquiry and visualization? This year, let’s take a trip through metaphors in science-based art and discuss how visual representations can enhance understanding, inspire wonder in science and the tension along the Accuracy-Artistic Divide. Discuss here.
C. Trust and Critical Thinking – Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself? Discuss: here.
D. Web Science: An examination of the World Wide Web and how it is transforming our society – Arikia Millikan and Nate Silver
Description: Web Science is an emerging field that attempts to study how people use the Web and communicate with each other through what is considered the “largest human information construct in history”. In this session we will discuss what exactly the Web is, how it is evolving based on user behavior, and how things like search engines, blogs, and social networking tools are shaping the society in which we live. We will also explore how to analyze the Web, and what we can do to actively take part in its construction to ensure that it continues to benefit society. Discuss here.
E. Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay – Rebecca Skloot
Description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your own in the future. Useful for anyone hoping to someday write for print or online publications. Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Kevin Emamy develops and runs CiteULike. You can read my interview with Kevin from a few months ago. At the conference, he will participate in the Online Reference Managers session.
Rhitu Chatterjee is the Multimedia Science Journalist and Podcast Host at The BBC/WGBH/PRI’s World Science. She is on Twitter and at the Conference she will do a demo of World Science.
Sam Krishna is the Chief Problem Solving Officer at The Analytical Group and he tweets.
Rebecca Weinberg is working on her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University.
Andrew Thaler is a graduate student at the Duke Marine Lab, a blogger and twitterer.
Gloria Lloyd is a freelance copywriter/editor, marketing writer, and journalist. And she is on Twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Felice Frankel is a famous science photographer. She works at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School’s Systems Biology, the Wyss Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is founder of the Image and Meaning series of workshops and conferences and leads the NSF-funded program Picturing to Learn. She has published some amazing books of science photography, including Envisioning Science, On the Surface of Things, and No Small Matter. At the conference, Felice will co-moderate the session on Art and Science: Visual Metaphors.
Jonathan Rees is a computer scientist. He is the Science Commons (part of Creative Commons) representative to the W3C Heath Care and Life Sciences Interest Group and, together with others at Neurocommons is involved in building a Semantic Web. At the conference, Jonathan will lead the session Shakespeare wasn’t a semantic web guy.
Kathleen Angione is the Science Communications Fellow at North Carolina Sea Grant and the North Carolina State University Department of English. She is the senior editor of Coastwatch magazine.
Roy Campbell is the director of exhibits at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. He will, as he does every year, take a group of participants on a tour of the Museum.
Kristian Lum is a PhD student in statistics at Duke. She is also on Twitter.
Greg Gbur is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Optical Science at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He blogs on Skulls in the Stars.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Peter Binfield is the Managing Editor of PLoS ONE and the Publisher at PLoS (all titles except Biology and Medicine), so, in a way, he’s my boss. And he tweets. At the conference, Pete will lead a session on Article-level metrics.
Bonnie Monteleone is staff (in the Department of Biochemistry) and a MALS Student at UNC Wilmington. She blogs on The Plastic Ocean and tweets. At the conference, Bonnie will co-moderate the session on Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Benjamin Young Landis is the Science Communication Fellow at North Carolina Sea Grant and contributing author to Coastwatch. And he is on Twitter.
Hillary Stoker is the Intern and Communications Coordinator at the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., a a national resource for computational science education.
Pamela Reynolds is a Graduate Student in the Department of Biology at UNC.
David Butterfield works for Eton Bioscience, Inc..

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
John Hogenesch is an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Pharmacology where he studies a topic dear to my heart – biological clocks. I interviewed John a few months ago. At the conference, John will moderate the session on Science in the cloud and do a Demo of Social Networking and performance evaluation in scientific centers.
Darlene Cavalier is the blogger at The Science Cheerleader, writer for Discover Magazine, founder of ScienceForCitizens.net and twitterer. At the conference, Darlene will moderate not one, not two, but three sessions: on Science on Radio, TV and video, Citizen Science and Science Education: Adults.
Damond Nollan is the Web Services Manager at North Carolina Central University, a Business PhD student, a blogger and Twitterer. At the conference, Damond will co-moderate the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Session: Engaging underrepresented groups in online science media.
Diana Gitig is a freelance science writer who has written for Science, Genetic Engineering News, The Scientist, BioTechniques, and the New York Academy of Sciences. And she is testing the waters of Twitter.
Stephen Pogonowski is a blogger and twitterer for the Faculty of 1000.
Emily Fisher is the Online Editor of Oceana Magazine and writes for the Oceana Newsletter and Oceana blog and Oceana twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Miriam Goldstein is a Ph.D. graduate student in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She recently led the Seaplex expedition to the North Pacific Gyre aka Garbage Patch. She blogs on Oyster’s Garter, on DoubleX and the Seaplex blog and she tweets both as seaplex and as herself. I interviewed Miriam after the last year’s conference. At the next one, Miriam will co-lead a sesion on Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and co-moderate the session on Broader Impact Done Right.
Andrew Farke is the curator of paleontology at Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, CA. He blogs on The Open Source Paleontologist and is one of the founders and managers of The Open Dinosaur Project. At the conference, Andy will present a demo of The Open Dinosaur Project.
Carmen Drahl is the Assistant Editor at Chemical and Engineering News, the blog of the American Chemical Society. And she is on Twitter.
Phillip Manning is a freelance science writer and book reviewer, including regularly for the Raleigh News & Observer. He can be found on Twitter as well.
Rabiah Mayas is the Science Director of Science Chicago and runs its blog and Twitter.
Gary Pattillo is a General Reference Librarian at UNC and writes Fast Facts page for C&RL News. And he tweets.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 3:15 – 4:20pm:
A. Government 2.0 – Anil Dash
Description: Introducing new tools for scientists to give feedback to the Obama Administration and asking for feedback on making it work, and work well. Discuss: here.
B. Open Access Publishing and Freeing the Scientific Literature (or Why Freedom is about more than just not paying for things) – Jonathan Eisen
Description: Open Access (OA) publishing in science has and continues to spread. We will discuss a variety of issues relating to OA publishing including different types of OA, why “open” and “free (as in no cost)” mean different things, the latest government and university mandates on OA publishing, financial aspects of OA, and the interdependence of OA and other forms of open science. Discuss here.
C. An Open History of Science – John McKay and Eric Michael Johnson
Description: We will be talking about how the history of science and the history of the open-access movement have intersected. Steven Johnson touches on this theme in his latest book, The Invention of Air, in that 18th century British polymath Joseph Priestley was a strong advocate of publishing scientific data widely in order to create a greater dialogue between scientists. While Johnson only mentions this briefly in the case of Priestley, this theme runs strongly through the history of science and is what makes the debate over the patenting of genes or the availability of open-access journals such important topics today. Discuss here.
D. How does a journalist figure out “which scientists to trust”? – Christine Ottery and Connie St Louis
Description: We will talk about how science journalists can know which scientists to trust based on a blogpost by Christine Ottery that made a splash in the world of science communication. As a relative newcomer to science journalism and blogging (Christine) and an award-winning broadcaster, journalist, writer and scientist (Connie), we will be bringing two very different viewpoints to the discussion. We will be touching on peer review, journals, reputation and maverick scientists. We will also examine how journalists and scientists can foster good working relationships with each other, find out what is best practice when it comes to sources for science journalists, and turn the premise of the talk on its head and ask “Which journalists can you trust?” of the scientists. Discuss here.
E. Science Education: Adults – Darlene Cavalier
Description: “Cavalier’s site Science Cheerleader aims to increase adult science literacy through a variety of channels including a partnership with GMU’s Prof James Trefil, efforts to involve adults in science policy discussions, and by directing adults to “on ramps” where they can find opportunities to volunteer to “do science” as part of formal or informal science activities.” Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Mary Ann Spiro is a Biotechnology graduate student and science writer/media director in the Institute for NanoBioTechnology at Johns Hopkins University. She writes for Baltimore Science News Examiner and tweets. At the conference, Mary will lead a workshop on Storyboarding your science video and posting it online and do an Ignite-style presentation “The Story of NanoBioTechnology”.
John Logsdon is a molecular evolutionary biologist and a .Biology Professor at The University of Iowa. He blogs on Sex, Genes and Evolution. He is currently on sabbatical, doing research at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
Jason Hoyt is the Research Director and blogger at Mendeley. He is also on Twitter. At the conference, Jason will be on a panel session on Online Reference Managers.
Victoria McGovern is the Senior Program Officer at Burroughs Wellcome Fund where she oversees BWF’s Infectious Disease and Population Sciences programs: Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease and the Institutional Program Unifiying Populational and Laboratory Based Sciences.
Megan Scudellari is a freelance writer and journalist here in Durham, NC.
Austin Luton is the Supervising Editor For Math at WebAssign at North Carolina State University. And he tweets.

Michael Specter, the ScienceOnline2010 Keynote Speaker, was on DailyShow with Jon Stewart last night. Watch it:

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Kirsten Sanford, better known as ‘Dr.Kiki’, is a neuroscientist, a journalist, a blogger and a twitterer. She hosts The Weekly Science Talk Radio Program and Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour on TWiT.tv. At the conference, she will co-moderate two sessions: on Podcasting in science and Science on Radio, TV and video.
John Timmer is the Science Editor of Nobel Intent at Ars Technica. And he tweets. At the conference, John will co-moderate the session on Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web.
Tricia Kenny is the Director of Market Development at Invitrogen. And she is on Twitter.
Scott Huler is a science writer and journalist, an NPR contributor, and an author of several books, including Defining the Wind about the origins of the Beaufort Scale.
Julia Soplop graduated from the Medical Journalism Program at UNC and is now the staff writer for Where in the world is RTI, the publication of the RTI’s International Development Group.
Garrett Eastman is the Librarian and blogger in the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. And is on Twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Carl Zimmer is a science writer and journalist, a New York Times science writer, author of numerous books on biology and evolution, a prominent blogger and twitterer. At the conference, Carl will co-moderate the session Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web.
Tara Richerson is a science teacher, working in the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction in WA, a blogger and twitterer. At the conference, Tara will be quite busy – she will lead a session on Scientific visualization, co-moderate the session on Citizen Science and Students and lead a Friday Workshop on Blogging 101.
Bill Silberg is a medical journalist and consultant, a blogger and twitterer.
Allie Wilkinson is a scientist, environmentalist, journalist, a student of journalism at Hofstra University, a blogger and twitterer.
Jonathan Gitlin is a writer for Ars Technica and the veteran of all our conferences. And he’s on Twitter.
Marisol Waters is a student of pharmacology at North Carolina Central University .

While the rest of the Program has been set for more than a month now, we have not yet announced who the Friday night Keynote Speaker will be at ScienceOnline2010. But now that all the negotiations have been done, we can do so. It is my pleasure to announce that we will have an exciting – and somewhat controversial – speaker that day – Michael Specter.
Michael Specter has started out in journalism at The Washington Post where he was, among else, the national science reporter and later their New York City bureau chief. He later moved to the Times and was the co-chief of the Times Moscow bureau and then the correspondent based in Rome. For the past decade or so, he has been the staff writer, focusing on science and technology, at The New Yorker.
Michael’s latest book is Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (order from Amazon, my copy is on its way). Of course, the topic is explosive, so the reviews span the entire spectrum. See, for example, two very different reviews in New York Times – here and here. Or compare the reviews in Grist and Boston Globe. There is an interesting four-part discussion on Slate between Michael Specter and Chris Mooney that is worth your time.
You can watch Michael give a talk here, discuss denialism with Chris Mooney on Bloggingheads.tv and you can see him on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on December 3rd. He will appear at TED in February (yes, we got him first).

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Glendon Mellow is a freelance artist-illustrator, currently a student at York University. He blogs at The Flying Trilobite and tweets. I interviewed Glendon earlier this year. At the conference, he will co-moderate the session on Art and Science: Visual Metaphors and lead a workshop where he’ll teach how to Paint your blog images using a digital tablet.
Annie Crawley is a producer, underwater cinematographer, Scuba Instructor, boat captain, writer, motivational speaker, and the founder of Dive Into Your Imagination. She tweets both for Dive Into Your Imagination and as herself. At the conference, Annie will be quite busy – she’ll co-moderate the session Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, do a demo of Dive Into Your Imagination and give an Ignite talk on a related topic – education about ocean and environment.
Chris Brodie is a freelance writer, scientist, contributing editor at American Scientist magazine, Fulbright Scholar in science communication (Norway ’08), adjunct faculty in Communication at NC State, founder of SCONC, a blogger and tweeterer.
Alla Katsnelson is the Associate Editor and the ‘News and Lab Tools’ editor at The Scientist. And she is on Twitter.
Michael Taffe is Associate Professor at the Committee On The Neurobiology Of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute.
Kerstin Hoppenhaus is a scientist and a documentary film-maker and director in Berlin, Germany.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Stephanie Zvan is a science fiction and fantasy writer and editor. She blogs on Almost Diamonds and Quiche Moraine and tweets. I interviewed Stephanie on the blog, and Stephanie interviewed me on the radio. At the conference, she will co-moderate the session on Trust and Critical Thinking.
Bill Hooker is a molecular/cellular biologist and an Open Access evangelist. This will be Bill’s fourth appearance at the conference. He blogs on Open Reading Frame. I interviewed Bill last year.
Michelle Francl is a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College. She blogs on The Culture of Chemistry and Quantum Theology and is on Twitter.
Travis Saunders is an obesity researcher, a PhD student in Exercise Physiology in Ottawa, Canada, a Certified Exercise Physiologist, public speaker, writer and distance runner. He blogs on Obesity Panacea and tweets.
Tracey Switek is the Associate Coordinator at the Rutgers IR-4 Project, and ecologist, photographer, a blogger and twitterer. Oh, btw, she is married to Brian so she is a SciBling in a way as well.
Thomas Linden is the anchor of Journal Watch Audio, the Director of the UNC Science & Medical Journalism Program and a blogger.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 2 – 3:05pm:
A. Citizen Science and Students – Sandra Porter, Tara Richerson (science_goddess), and Antony Williams
Description: Students are a great resource for projects that require large numbers of volunteers. We will discuss examples of projects that combine student learning with authentic research and the power of blogs to connect students with projects. Discuss here.
B. Medicine 2.0 and Science 2.0–where do they intersect? – Walter Jessen
Description: Medicine 2.0 applications, services and tools are defined as Web-based services for healthcare consumers/patients, health professionals and biomedical researchers that use Web 2.0 technologies and/or semantic web and virtual reality approaches to enable and facilitate (1) social networking; (2) participation; (3) apomediation (guidance generated and available from peripheral mediators); (4) openness; and (5) collaboration within and between these user groups for the purposes of maintaining and/or restoring human health. How are these themes being applied in scientific research? What are the reasons some themes are better applied than others? How are researchers integrating Science 2.0 tools into their workflows? Do they offer an immediate benefit? Where could there be improvement? What are the social and cultural obstacles to widespread adoption of Medicine 2.0 and Science 2.0? Discuss here.
C. Scientists! What can your librarian do for you? – Stephanie Willen Brown and Dorothea Salo
Description: Find free, scholarly, science stuff on the Internet, via your public or state library, or on the “free Web.” Learn tips & tricks for getting full-text science research at all levels, through resources like DOAJ and NC Live (for those with a North Carolina library card; other states often offer free resources to library card holders). Find out about some options for storing science material at your academic institution’s Institutional Repository. We will also talk about the broader access to material stored in institutional repositories and elsewhere on the Web. Discuss here.
D. Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging – Tamara Krinsky and Jennifer Ouellette
Description: Over the past several years, the Internet has tangibly changed the way that movies and TV shows are produced and marketed. Blogs will call out ridiculous scientific errors found in stories and the critique can go viral very quickly; therefore, science advising is on the rise in an attempt to add some semblance of plausibility to your favorite flicks. As tools on the web continue to evolve, filmmakers and television creators are finding new ways to connect with and market to their viewers. For some shows, this has meant tapping into the science featured in their content, ranging from an exploration of the roots of the science that has been fictionalized to the expansion of a scientific topic explored in a documentary. In this session, we’ll look at how online video and social networking tools are playing a part in connecting science, Hollywood and its fans. Discuss here.
E. Demos
– Deutsches Museum and Lampenfieber – Jessica Riccò
Description: Introducing Deutsches Museum and Lampenfieber kids’ science magazine.
– Science Media Centre and Sciblogs, New Zealand – Fabiana Kubke
Description: As part of the strategy to engage New Zealanders with science and technology the Ministry of Research, Science & Technology (MoRST) announced a three-year pilot Science & Technology Media Centre for New Zealand. The Science Media Centre, conceptualised on the success of the SMC’s in the UK and Australia, serves as an independent source of expert comment and information for journalists covering science and technology. Its aim is to promote accurate, bias-free reporting on science and technology by helping the media work more closely with the scientific community. On September 30, 2009, SMC launched a major new science communication effort with Sciblogs, a network of science blogs covering everything from clinical health to climate change with 26 bloggers, including scientists from universities, Crown Research Institutes and private research organisations along the length of the country. It is the largest online hub for science-related content relevant to New Zealand. The Sciblogs platform is the first major implementation of the opensource WordPress MU (multiple user) blogging system in New Zealand. Duscuss here.
– Doing science in Second Life – Jean-Claude Bradley
Description: Doing science in Second Life – molecule docking. Discuss here.
– The Open Dinosaur Project – Andy Farke
Description: “Open Dinosaur Project”:http://opendino.wordpress.com/ (ODP) was created to involve scientists and the public alike in developing a comprehensive database of dinosaur limb bone measurements, in order to investigate questions of dinosaur function and evolution. An untapped wealth of measurements is contained within the scientific literature, but a massive research team is needed to digitize these data into a usable form. With the rise of digital journals (many of which are open access) and internet collaboration tools, it is now feasible to crowd-source this digitization effort. The ODP emphasizes open science (so that all data are available immediately) while engaging the general public in real research. This demo will highlight several aspects of the project, including 1) coordinating efforts by professional paleontologists and interested amateurs; 2) data entry and verification; 3) blogging the research process; and 4) soliciting meaningful involvement in project design from participants of diverse backgrounds. Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Beatrice Lugger is a freelance science journalist and consultant, one of the founders of ScienceBlogs Germany and a twitterer. At the conference, Beatrice will co-moderate the session on Science online talks between generations.
Danica Radovanovic is a PhD student at the Oxford Internet Institute, a blogger and a twitterer. I interviewed her a couple of months ago – you can read it here. At the conference, Danica will lead a workshop on Social media for beginners.
Ian Oeschger is a writer, the editor of the hyper-local Wilminton NC journalism Grove Project, and an IBM information architect. He is also on Twitter.
Simon Frantz is the Senior Editor of the Nobel Prize website. And he tweets.
Evelyn Lynge is the Co-President of the Jacksonville branch of The American Association of University Women and one of the people who has been to every one of our conferences so far.
Salman Hameed is the Assistant Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College where he teaches on Science And Religion. And he writes a blog.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Ken Liu is the V.P. for Business Development at SciVee, Inc and he will do a demo of SciVee.tv at the conference.
Allyson Bennett is a Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She blogs on Speaking of Research.
Paolo Mangiafico is the Director of Digital Information Strategy at the Duke University Libraries. He is also on Twitter.
Steve Burnett is a technical writer and information developer, an experimental musician, a blogger and twitterer.
Nancy Shepherd is a geneticist and the Founder and CEO of Shepherd Research, LLC. She is also on Twitter.
Julie Kelsey is a biologist and journalist, she blogs on Mama Joules and tweets.
Maria Minno runs NatureFinder.net and tweets.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Erin Johnson is the Seed Overlord, running the Scienceblogs.com site, a.k.a. herding cats. She blogs on Page 3.14 and tweets as Scienceblogs.
Dave Munger is a writer. He blogs on Cognitive Daily and Word Munger. Dave is the founder of ResearchBlogging.org (where he also runs the blog) and he tweets (also here). At the conference, Dave will run a workshop Blogging 102.
Greta Munger is a professor of psychology at Davidson College and also blogs on Cognitive Daily.
Eric Michael Johnson is an evolutionary anthropologist, a historian of science and a blogger at The Primate Diaries. He is also on Twitter. At the conference, Eric will co-moderate the session An Open History of Science.
Greg Laden is an antropologist and writer. He blogs on the eponimous blog and tweets. At the conference, Greg will co-moderate the session on Trust and Critical Thinking.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
D.N.Lee is working on her PhD in Animal Behavior, Mammalogy, and Ecology at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. She writes for the St.Louis Examiner, blogs on Urban Science Adventures and tweets. At the conference, Danielle will co-moderate the session Casting a wider net: Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in STEM.
Jacqueline Floyd is a geophysicist, now involved in science outreach. She blogs on Element List and Jackie and she tweets. At the conference, Jackie will co-moderate the session on Earth Science, Web 2.0+, and Geospatial Applications.
Maryn McKenna is an independent journalist who blogs on Superbug and has a book on MRSA coming out soon. She is a contributing writer at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy of the University of Minnesota, and she tweets, as herself and as her blog.
Dennis Meredith is a freelance writer and consultant, with a long career in science communication. He is the creator and developer of EurekAlert and blogs on Research Explainer
Mary Jane Gore is the Senior Science Writer for The Duke Medicine Office of News and Communications and she tweets.
Rahul Radhakrishnan is a physics graduate student at Rudtgers. He blogs on A Posteriori and tweets.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Victoria Stodden is a Postdoctoral Associate in Law and Kauffman Fellow in Law and Innovation at Yale Law School, a fellow with the Internet and Democracy Project at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School and a Fellow at Science Commons. She blogs and tweets. At the Conference, Victoria will lead the session on Legal Aspects of publishing, sharing and blogging science.
Anthony Townsend is the Research Director at The Institute for the Future and the author of an influential booklet Future Knowledge Ecosystems (pdf). He blogs both at Future Now and his own site and tweets. At the conference, Anthony will co-moderate the session The Importance of Meatspace: Science Motels, science freelancing and science coworking.
Tina Valdecanas is the Chief Strategy & Branding Officer at the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina which runs the Research Triangle Park, one of our hosts and sponsors this year. She blogs and tweets. At the conference, Tina will do a demo of Research Triangle Park – how online and offline work together.
Christian Rapp runs Communications and Organisation for the annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and tweets. At the conference, Christian will co-moderate the session Science online talks between generations.
Pamela Reynolds is a Graduate Student in Biology in the Bruno lab and the Institute of Marine Science at UNC. And a return attendee of the conference.
Mauricio Borgen is the IT Administrator at Athenix Corp, a agricultural and chemical biotechnology company, and a veteran of all our conferences over the years.

Listen to Nature EdCast podcast about No Small Matter and Picturing to Learn:

In today’s podcast Ilona interviews Felice Frankel, a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard and a Research Scientist at MIT. Felice is a photographer who is keenly interested in visual communication of complex concepts. To that end, she has written three books about the subject. Felice’s recent effort to bring visual representation of science concepts into education culminated in the NSF-funded Picturing to Learn project. Her most recent book, No Small Matter, written with George Whitesides, illustrates nanoscience with metaphor. Listen to this podcast to hear about how creating visual representations of science can change the way science is taught. A full transcript of the podcast is below. [19:23]

Felice will be at ScienceOnline2010, leading a session on Art and Science: Visual Metaphors. Her book, No Small Matter, arrived the other day and Bride Of Coturnix and I were oohing and aahing over it – it is beautiful and brilliant.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 11:30am – 12:35pm:
A. Legal Aspects of publishing, sharing and blogging science – Victoria Stodden
Description: Not giving legal advice, but discussion of CC-licences, copyright, Fair Use, libel laws, etc. Discuss here.
B. Shakespeare wasn’t a semantic web guy – Jonathan Rees
Description: That which we call a rose, by any other name, wouldn’t be identified by a computer as a rose. This talk will go through the Shared Name initiative which promotes community-wide use of shared names for records from public databases. The goal is to have a significant effect on the practice of bioinformatics by making it easier to share and link data sets and tools across projects. Selecting and maintaining names is a serious capacity building problem for moving the RDF world from the hacker and hobbyist community to the regular user. And a growing body of experience emphasizes that for any solution to be generally adopted, it must not only be technically sound, but also serve and empower the community of users. Discuss here.
C. Citizen Science – Darlene Cavalier, Scott Baker and Ben MacNeill
Description: Not so long ago, “citizen scientist” would have seemed to be a contradiction in terms. Science is traditionally something done by people in lab coats who hold PhDs. As with classical music or acting, amateurs might be able to appreciate science, but they could not contribute to it. Today, however, enabled by technology and empowered by social change, science-interested laypeople are transforming the way science gets done. Through a myriad of different projects, citizen scientists are collaborating with professionals, conducting field studies, and adding valuable local detail to research. Discuss here.
D. Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – Miriam Goldstein, Lindsey Hoshaw, Annie Crawley and Bonnie Monteleone
Description: Debris in the North Pacific Gyre received unprecedented attention in 2009 with voyages from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Project Kaisei, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Each voyage integrated online outreach into its mission, but emphasized very different aspects of the problem. What are the challenges of creating a major outreach effort from one of the most isolated places on earth? How can scientists, journalists, and educators balance “exciting findings live from the field!” with “highly preliminary unpublished non-peer-reviewed data that our labwork might contradict”? And why is the public so interested in the issue of trash in the ocean, anyway? Discuss here.
E. Scientific visualization – Tara Richerson (science_goddess)
Description: A picture is not only worth a thousand words—it is also worth a thousand numbers. This session will focus on ways to move from raw quantitative and qualitative data to a variety of visuals that communicate with all audiences. Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Hope Leman is a Research Information Technologist at Samaritan Health Services. She runs ScanGrants (a free, subscribable (via email or RSS) online listing of grant opportunities, prizes and scholarships in the health and life sciences and community service fields), tweets and blogs on Significant Science. At the conference, Hope will do a demo of ScanGrants.
Ernie Hood is a freelance science writer and he hosts a weekly science radio show – Radio In Vivo – at the local radio station WCOM-FM in Carrboro, NC. Ernie is currently presiding over SCONC – the organization of Science Communicators of North Carolina.
Elle Cayabyab Gitlin writes for Ars Technica, blogs and tweets. And she is always a great help to us at the conference, every year volunteering to help.
Peter Janiszewski is an Obesity Researcher (PhD Candidate) in the Exercise Physiology Lab at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada, a Science/Health Blogger at Obesity Panacea, a freelance writer, a musician, and a Twitterer.
Jayme Corbell, another veteran of our conferences, got her PhD in chemistry at Duke and now works at Catalent.
Jonathan Lifland is the Media and Communications Manager at PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) and is on Twitter

Continuing with the series (I get more and more feedback that people love this) introducing, a few at a time, the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Anil Dash is a pioneer blogger (and of course twitterer) and one of the founders of Six Apart, the company that built blogging platforms including MoveableType (which is used by Scienceblogs.com) and Typepad.
Just yesterday, he made an official announcement that he will be leading Expert Labs (also on Twitter) which is a new project (largely run/funded by AAAS) to facilitate feedback by the experts (including scientists, of course) to the Obama Administration and other government officials. Read the press release, the early media coverage (this one is much better) , an interview with Anil (pdf) and a video. Interestingly, Anil got this job due to writing a blog post stating that the executive branch of the federal government of the United States was the “Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009”.
At ScienceOnline2010, Anil will run the session Government 2.0 the main purpose of which is for him to get feedback from the leaders of the science and Web community on how to make Expert Labs work the best it possibly can.
Lindsey Hoshaw is a freelance journalist and a recent journalism graduate from Stanford University. She has stirred quite a lot of passion in the world of journalism recently by being one of the first and probably best known products of ‘crowdsourced journalism’ – she made a pitch at Spot.us and it was successful – she collected sufficient funds (and the Facebook fan page helped there as well) to go on a reporting trip on a research ship to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. She reported from the voyage on her blog and via Twitter (also her personal account). I blogged about this before the trip started.
A short summary article by Lindsey was then published in the New York Times (which, while making no promises, was interested in the story from the start). That article (and especially in comparison to her blogging) was greeted by quite a lot of commentary, some by media watchers and journalists, some by scientists. See the reactions, for example, by Megan Garber, Miriam Goldstein, John Zhu, Martin Robbins, Mathew Ingram and Sheril Kirshenbaum (and Sheril again – read the comment thread).
The voyage, and the reporting from it (both on traditional and modern media platforms), brought into light the differences between the goals, needs, methods and ethics of journalists and those of scientists. What those differences are, and how they can be surmounted so scientists and journalists can work together and each do a better job, will be the topic of the session that Lindsay will be co-moderating – Talking Trash – which promises to be quite exciting!
Ben MacNeill is a designer here in Chapel Hill. I first met Ben at the 2005 BloggerCon at UNC. When his daughter Trixie was born he started a blog, Trixie Update, on which he recorded and graphed everything he could think of about his daughter’s daily patterns: when she slept, ate, had a diaper change, etc. I commented on this, from a perspective of a chronobiologist, in an old blog post about the development and consolidation of circadian rhythms and sleep patterns in human infants. Trixie is far too old to have diapers changed any more, but the setup continues. Ben has developed the software further and is now offering it as an iPhone (or Web) application – the Trixie Tracker which you can use, if you are a new parent, to track everything you want about your baby (and perhaps detect early if something suddenly changes and perhaps requires medical attention). Ben is also on Twitter.
At the conference, Ben will do a demo of Data-driven parenting – Trixie Tracker and co-moderate the session on Citizen Science.
Elia Ben-Ari is a freelance science writer and editor who has published in many good venues over the years. She is active on Twitter. Her latest article (which, understandably, garnered quite a lot of interest online) is Twitter: What’s All the Chirping About?
Wayne Sutton is a social media maven. He is a partner of social media marketing agency OurHashtag, the co-host of a social media podcast at TalkSocialNews.com, the host of the online video show WayneSutton.TV, and a veteran blogger. He is on every social networking site imaginable, but here let’s just link to his Twitter account. At ScienceOnline2010, Wayne will do an Ignite talk “Why Triangle is Better than Silicon Valley”.
Cara Rousseau is the Director for Partnership Initiatives at the Research Triangle Foundation (read more about it in yesterday’s post), one of our biggest sponsors and hosts this year. She tweets, both as herself and for RTP and has just started the official RTP blog. At the conference, Cara will do a demo of the Research Triangle Park – how online and offline work together.

I have to say I am myself enjoying doing these introductory posts. I get to Google people, see who they are and what they’ve been up to lately, discover stuff about friends’ past careers I did not know, find them (and follow/subscribe/friend) on Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, and generally get all starry-eyed about the amazing group of people who registered for the conference and who I can’t wait to see. So, without further ado, here are a few more of them:
Beth Beck is the Outreach Program Manager for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. And no, she is not a rocket scientist, she is a political scientist. She blogs and tweets. At the conference, Beth will co-moderate the session Broader Impact Done Right.
Henry Gee is a Senior Editor at Nature, founder and editor of Nature Futures, columnist on BBC Focus, editor of Mallorn (journal of the Tolkien Society), writer and editor of several science and SF books, a compulsive twitterer as well as a blogger both on I, Editor and The End Of The Pier Show. And a dear personal friend.
Connie St Louis is the Director of the Science Journalism MA at City University, London. She is an award-winning freelance broadcaster, journalist, writer and scientist, noted for her work at BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. At the conference, Connie will co-moderate (together with her student Christine Ottery) the session How does a journalist figure out ‘which scientists to trust’?
Michael Nitabach is the Assistant Professor of Cellular & Molecular Physiology at Yale School of Medicine, the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program and the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Yale. And he is a colleague – an awesome chronobiologist.
Robin Ann Smith is the alumna of the Duke University Writing Program, a freelance science writer, and the Communications Manager (and official twitterer) at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). At the conference, Robin will do a demo presentation of NESCent online efforts.
Josh Wilson is the Reference Librarian for Physical & Mathematical Sciences at the D.H.Hill library at NCSU, my alma mater. Josh blogs and tweets as well.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
John McKay is a historian who’s been blogging on Archy for, like, forever. He is the undisputed blogospheric the-go-to person on all things related to mammoths, about which (the amazing history of how the world discovered and learned about mammoths) he is now writing a book (many parts of which have already appeared in draft form on his blog). In their spare time, John and his wife run a small business (I tested them and they are awesome) and use Twitter to promote it. At the conference, John will co-moderate the session An Open History of Science.
Tamara Krinsky is a person of many interests: she is a writer, the Associate Editor for DOCUMENTARY Magazine (where she also blogs), a movie blogger, a science blogger, a twitterer, and is probably best known as an actress (you could see her both in theater and on TV, including in Charmed, Seventh Heaven, Star Trek: First Contact and the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week). At the conference, Tamara will co-moderate the session Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging.
Rick Weddle is the President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, the organization that runs and manages the 50 year old renowned Research Triangle Park. Research Triangle Foundation is one of the major sponsors of our conference, as well as a host of two events: the Friday morning Workshops will be held at the Park Research Center and the Friday night gala will be hosted by them at the RTP headquarters. Of course, the main venue (Sigma Xi), the hotel (Radisson) and several locations of Friday lab/food tours will also be inside the Park. You can follow Rick on Twitter as well.
Desiree Schell is the host of Skeptically Speaking, the skeptical call-in talk show. She is on Twitter as well. At the conference, Desiree will co-moderate the session Trust and Critical Thinking.
Christie Lynn Wilcox is a PhD student in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Hawaii. She is a marine scientist and a wonderful science blogger (as of recently, also here). She is also on Twitter.
Clifton Wiens is the Head of Research and Editorial Story Development for National Geographic Television. And yes, he is also on Twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Stacy Baker has changed schools since last year, but she’s coming back nonetheless, again with eight of her students. As you may remember, her session on the use of the Web in middle/high science classroom from the perspective of the Facebook generation was the Big Hit of ScienceOnline09. Miss Baker has developed a classroom website and blog, she tweets and also writes a blog targeted at other teachers. She now teaches at Staten Island Academy which is experimenting with the Web and social networks quite a bit. Read my interview with Miss Baker from a few months ago. She and her students will be moderating a session Blogging the Future – The Use of Online Media in the Next Generation of Scientists at ScienceOnline2010.
Karl Leif Bates is the Director of Research Communications at Duke University, editor of Duke Research and a blogger and twitterer. Read his ABATC interview from last year. At the conference, Karl will lead a session on Medical journalism.
K.T. Vaughan is the Pharmacy Librarian, a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Pharmacy at UNC, a blogger on the Pharmacy Librarian blog, a veteran of all four of our conferences and is on Twitter.
Jason Robertshaw is the Media and Technology Coordinator in the Center for Distance Learning at the Mote Marine Laboratory and runs Cephalopodcast and Cephaloblog. He is also on Twitter.
Vincent Racaniello is a Professor of Microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center and a Community Editor at PLoS Pathogens. He produces the This Week in Virology podcasts, tweets, and writes a blog. Check out his Wikipedia page and his Twibe. At the conference, Vincent will co-moderate the session Getting the Science Right: The importance of fact checking mainstream science publications — an underappreciated and essential art — and the role scientists can and should (but often don’t) play in it.
Maria Droujkova leads the mathfuture network and the Physics + Math + Modeling local community. She is the Director of Natural Math and tweets. At the conference, Maria will co-moderate the session Connections with mathematics and programming through modeling.

If you go either to the page that lists all the Friday morning Workshops or the main Saturday/Sunday Program page you will see that each session has a title, names (and links to homepages) of moderators and a brief description.
Now, you can also see that at the end of each description there is a link that says “Discuss here”. If you click on any of those links, you will be transported to the individual wiki page of that particular session/demo/workshop.
Moderators have been asked to use those individual pages. They may expand the description so it’s longer. They may put their notes there. Or add important links. Or add/link/embed important files. They may ask questions: what do you want discussed there? And they will answer your questions if you put them there – just edit the page and ask. An entire discussion may (and hopefully will) occur on that page.
If you blog about a particular session, or write an MSM piece about it, or have images or audio/video files of it, please remember to post the permalink on that session’s page as well. We want these pages to be archives of what happens at the conference. As we’ll try to livestream and record all sessions, we’ll also link or embed the recordings on the individual pages as well – a record for the future.
The conference lasts, in physical space, only about three days. But each and every session can have a much longer life, on its individual wiki page, both before and after the meeting.

Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 10:15 – 11:20am:
A. Demos
– FieldTripEarth – Mark MacAllister and Russ Williams
Description: Field Trip Earth (FTE) is the conservation education website operated by the North Carolina Zoological Society. FTE works closely with field-based wildlife researchers and provides their “raw materials”–field journals, photos, datasets, GIS maps, and so on–to K-12 teachers and students. The website is in use by classrooms in all 50 US states and 140 countries world-wide, and was recently designated as a “Landmark Website” by the American Association of School Librarians. Discuss here.
– NESCent – Craig McClain and Robin Ann Smith
Description: “NESCent”:http://www.nescent.org/index.php, online efforts. Discuss here.
– Research Triangle Park – Cara Rousseau and Tina Valdecanas
Description: “Research Triangle Park”:http://www.rtp.org/main/ – how online and offline work together. Discuss here.
– PRI/BBC World-Science – Elsa Youngsteadt and Rhitu Chatterjee
Description: PRI/BBC World-Science – combining radio, podcasts, the website and forums. Discuss here.
B. Science on Radio, TV and video – Darlene Cavalier and Kirsten ‘Dr.Kiki’ Sanford
Description: How is science portrayed in mass market multi-media? We will examine the ways that the many available audio and video formats present scientific ideas, and the pros, and the cons to what reaches your eyes and ears. We will also embark on a conversation to investigate what can be done by the average scientist to help make science in the media even better. Discuss here.
C. Science in the cloud – John Hogenesch
Description: A series of parallel revolutions are occurring in science as data, analysis, ideas, and even scientific manuscript authoring are moving away from the desktop and into the cloud. In this session we will focus on science and the cloud starting with the concept of Open Access, moving to cloud-based computation and its use cases, and how new efforts are bringing cloud approaches to the entire authorship and review process. Discuss here.
D. Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web – Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, and David Dobbs
Description: Our panel of journalist-blogger hybrids – Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, Ed Yimmer Yong, and David Dobbs- will discuss and debate the future of science journalism in the online world. Are blogs and mainstream media the bitter rivals that stereotypes would have us believe, or do the two sides have common threads and complementary strengths? How will the tools of the Internet change the art of reporting? How will the ongoing changes strengthen writing about science? How might these changes compromise or threaten writing about science? In a world where it’s possible for anyone to write about science, where does that leave professional science journalists? And who actually are these science journalists anyway? Discuss here.
E. Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything – Pal MD and Val Jones.
Description: We all know that there are potential pitfalls to having a prominent online presence, but for physicians, the implications affect more than just themselves. How should doctors and similar professionals manage their online life? What are the ethical and legal implications? Discuss here.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Antony Williams is the Vice President of Strategic Development for ChemSpider at Royal Society of Chemistry. He lives in Raleigh, NC, blogs on ChemSpider blog and tweets. At the conference, Antony will be quite busy – he will co-moderate the session “Citizen Science and Students”, give two Ignite talks “”Crowdsourced Chemistry – Why Online Chemistry Data Needs Your Help” and “Games in Open Science Education”, and do a Demo of “ChemSpider – Crowdsourced Curation of Online Chemistry Data”.
Jeff Ives writes and manages print and online communications and content for the New England Aquarium. He can be found on Twitter. At the conference, Jeff will co-moderate the session “Broader Impact Done Right”.
Kelly Rae Chi is a graduate of the Medical Journalism Program at UNC and a freelance science and technology writer here in the Triangle. Follow her on Twitter.
Rob Gluck is the veteran of all our conferences. He blogs on Science On Tap and tweets.
Andria Krewson, after many years in the newspapers, is now freelancing and consulting. She blogs on Global Vue and Under Oak and tweets.

A record number of bloggers from scienceblogs.com are coming to the meeting – I have already introduced a bunch of them. Here are a few more, and that’s still not all of them.
As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Sandra Porter is a microbiologist and molecular biologist. She produces educational materials and bioinformatics tools at Digital World Biology, she blogs and tweets. At the conference, Sandy will co-moderate the session “Citizen Science and Students”.
Ed Yong is a freelance science writer, the information officer at Cancer Research UK, a blogger and a twitterer. At the conference, Ed will co-moderate the session “Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web“.
Katie Thompson is a graphic designer, a graduate of University of Alabama in both pure mathematics and English. She blogs on Zooillogix.
Brian Switek is a freelance science writer, as student at Rutgers University, a blogger on Laelaps and Dinosaur Tracking and a twitterer. At the conference, Brian will co-moderate the session “From Blog to Book: Using Blogs and Social Networks to Develop Your Professional Writing“.
Blake Stacey is a physicist, a science fiction writer, and a blogger. At the conference, Blake will co-moderate the session “Connections with mathematics and programming through modeling”.
Chris Rowan is a geologist at the University of Edinburgh, a blogger and twitterer. At the conference, Chris will co-moderate the session “Earth Science, Web 2.0+, and Geospatial Applications”.

Continuing with the introductions… I got some nice positive feedback about this series – makes it easier for people to get to know everyone little by little instead of digging through the entire list of everyone who’s registered for the conference all at once.
Rebecca Skloot is an accomplished science writer, currently excited about the publication of her first book (to universal accolades) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She is a SciBling, blogging here on Culture Dish and can be found on Twitter. The Keynote Speaker at last year’s conference, this time Rebecca will lead three sessions: “From Blog to Book: Using Blogs and Social Networks to Develop Your Professional Writing”, “Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay” and “Getting the Science Right: The importance of fact checking mainstream science publications — an underappreciated and essential art — and the role scientists can and should (but often don’t) play in it.”
Jennifer Ouellette is a science writer who gave the Keynote Address two years ago, at our 2008 conference. She blogs on Cocktail Party Physics and Twisted Physics blogs. Jennifer published two popular science books, The Physics of the Buffyverse and Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics and is now the Director of Science & Entertainment Exchange. Read my interview with Jennifer from last year. At the Conference, Jennifer will co-moderate the session “Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging”.
Elsa Youngsteadt and I were in graduate school together, some years ago. Although not in the same department, we were both a part of the NCSU Keck Center for Behavioral Biology. Elsa is now a programs manager at Sigma Xi, a freelance writer and does weekly podcasts on World Science. She tweets both as herself and for the World Science. At the conference, Elsa will do a demo of PRI/BBC World-Science – combining radio, podcasts, the website and forums.
DeLene Beeland is a science and nature writer who recently moved into the Triangle area of North Carolina. She blogs on Science Muse and, as of recently, on Science In The Triangle blog. She tweets and she just signed a contract with UNC press for a book about wolf conservation and ecology.
Christine Ottery is a Science Journalism MA student at City University in London, UK. She tweets, she blogs on Open Minds and Parachutes and Wood and trees. She contributes to Guardian’s Comment Is Free and makes podcasts for Environment News and Commentary. At the conference, Christine will lead a session “How does a journalist figure out ‘which scientists to trust’?” which will also explore the reverse question: how does a scientist figure out which journalists to trust.
Vanessa Woods is an author and journalist from Australia who now resides here in Durham, NC and does research in primate behavior (and conservation) at Duke. Half of the year or so she spends in Congo (actually, in both Congos) studying and helping protect chimps and bonobos. She has written a number of books, including the absolutely amazing It’s every monkey for themselves. And she blogs from her field work..Check out her interview from last year.
Check out the rest of the Program so see who will be doing what come January.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Jonathan Eisen is a Professor at UC Davis, Academic Editor in Chief of PLoS Biology, author of the Evolution textbook, a blogger and a twitterer. At the conference, Jonathan will lead the session “Open Access Publishing and Freeing the Scientific Literature (or Why Freedom is about more than just not paying for things)”.
Russ Williams is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Zoological Society and a blogger. He is also on Twitter. At the conference, Russ will do a demo of FieldTripEarth.
Ivan Oransky is a veteran science journalist, a veteran of our conferences, and now the Executive editor at Reuters Health. He can also be found on Twitter.
Misha Angrist is the Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy. He uses his blog Genomeboy to write about the experience of being one of the subjects of the Personal Genome Project.
Stewart Wills is the Online Editor of Science magazine and is on Twitter.

As you know you can see everyone who’s registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Arikia Millikan is the fomer scienceblogs.com Overlord, a very tech and Web savvy blogger, writter and twitterer (and again). She is currently on a super-secret mission that gets her traveling around the country interviewing some fascinating people. You should read her recent interview here. At the Conference, Arikia will co-moderate (with Nate Silver) the session “Web Science: An examination of the World Wide Web and how it is transforming our society”.
Nate Silver is a statistics maven who became famous for amazingly precise predictions of electoral results on his blog FiveThirtyEight. He can also be found on Twitter. At the Conference, Nate will co-moderate (with Arikia Millikan) the session “Web Science: An examination of the World Wide Web and how it is transforming our society”.
Andrea Novicki is a biologist and the Academic Technology Consultant at the Center for Instructional Technology at Duke University Libraries where she runs their blog. She can also be found on Twitter.
Paul Jones has been blogging since back at the time when one had to build one’s own blog from scratch, know how to write code for it all instead of signing up for a free and easy-to-use service. He is the founder of Ibiblio.org, one of the largest “collections of collections” on the Internet and is a Web pioneer in general. Paul is a professor at UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication and UNC School of Information and Library Science. He was on the organizing committee of the first two science blogging conferences, back in 2007 and 2008. Oh, and of course, he is also on Twitter.
Brian Russell is an artist, a techie, an entrepreneur, a veteran blogger, podcaster and Twitterer. He is the founder of Orange Networking and CEO of Carrboro Creative Coworking. A few years back he organized the one and only PodcasterCon and also helped us organize the first two science blogging conferences in 2007 and 2008.

As you know, the Program is fully set now. There is a lot of stuff there! So, to help you out, I will post an occasional sample of sessions, organized by time – when they will occur during the conference.
So today, I’ll start at the beginning, highlighting session that will happen on Saturday, January 16th, at 9:00-10:05am. Letters A-E denote rooms. You will notice that each session has its own page where you are welcome to post questions and commentary.
A. From Blog to Book: Using Blogs and Social Networks to Develop Your Professional Writing – Tom Levenson, Brian Switek and Rebecca Skloot
Description: Many bloggers have the desire to use their blogs as a springboard to larger writing projects, such as a book, but the details of this process are obscure to many aspiring science writers. In this session we will discuss the details of writing a proposal, finding an agent, using blogs as “writing laboratories”, and making the most of the science blogging community in promoting your projects. Discuss here
B. Casting a wider net: Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in STEM – D.N.Lee and Anne Jefferson
Description: We will introduce programs that attract wider audiences to science, math, and engineering at various institutions/education levels, programs that mentor students (high school, undergrad & grad students) in research and education excellence. How Social Media tools can be used to raise the profile of and build support networks for under-represented scientists and engineers. Discuss here
C. Demos
– Science and the mobile device – Christopher Perrien
Description: A demo of iPhone Science Apps. Discuss here
– Trixie Tracker – Ben MacNeill
Description: Data-driven parenting – Trixie Tracker is a data tracking web and phone app that allows parents to tease out patterns in their children’s sleep activity. Discuss here
– Text message based angler reporting method: twitter and fishcatch – Scott Baker
Description: In this demo, audience members will use their personal cell phones to text in fisheries effort and catch data to an online database that is updated in real-time. Participants will use wallet sized cheat sheets (included) and the simple syntax “rectext” to help them prepare fishing reports in the proper format. A brief overview of current fisheries projects as well as other potential applications will be discussed. Discuss here
– Google Wave for scientists – Cameron Neylon
Description: Google Wave for scientists who are complete n00bs Discuss here
D. The Importance of Meatspace: Science Motels, science freelancing and science coworking – Anthony Townsend and Paweł Szczęsny
Description: Science careers and science workplaces are undergoing dramatic change, driven by internal shifts in the practice of science and external shifts in labor markets and workplace design and management. This session will be split into two sections. The first half will explore the shift from freelance scientists to virtual contract research organization, and explore alternative models for R&D;. The second half will explore possible models for science motels and science coworking, building on the “research cloud” scenario presented in the Institute for the Future’s “Future Knowledge Ecosystems” report, released in 2009 as part of the Research Triangle Park’s 50th anniversary. We will use a group brainstorming process to develop a map of ideas about how freelancer scientists, virtual CROs and flexible lab/workspaces may co-evolve in over the coming decade. Discuss here
E. Podcasting in science – Deepak Singh and Kirsten ‘Dr.Kiki’ Sanford
Description: What role does podcasting play in science? In fact, it plays many. More than just a way to broadcast ideas, podcasting is the beginning of a conversation, it is the archiving of methodologies, it is news, it is marketing, and much more. We will discuss the many ways that podcasting technology and techniques can be used to help you reach your communication goals. Discuss here