Amy Moll is a scientist on a mission to inform. A professor in the department of materials science and engineering at Boise State University, Idaho, she’s also chair of the Materials Research Society (MRS) public outreach committee, a role that sees her “bringing science and materials science to the general public”.
In our latest video report, Moll acknowledges that fear is a big issue for many scientists wary of communicating their research to a wider audience. “It’s sometimes hard to talk to the general public about your science, and it can be difficult to communicate with folks when you don’t know where they’re coming from or you don’t know what their background is.”
Nevertheless, she argues that outreach is not optional, rather that scientists have a duty to spread the word about their work. “These are the folks that vote, that make decisions, that are active in their local community…It’s their tax money that’s paying us to do research, so we have an obligation to tell them about it.”
This interview forms part of a series filmed at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. See also “Living in a material world” and “Funding the frontiers of materials science”.
