The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science is a

cross-disciplinary An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part) and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, a ...

organization founded in 2009 within

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

's School of Communication and Journalism, in

Stony Brook, New York Stony Brook is a political subdivisions of New York#Hamlet, hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, Town of Brookhaven, New York, Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the No ...

.Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science
/ref> Its current director is Laura Lindenfeld. Its goal is to help scientists learn to communicate more effectively with the public, including policymakers, students, funders and the media. It was inspired by

Alan Alda Alan Alda (; born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner and a three-time Tony Award nominee, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pier ...

, the actor, writer and science advocate, in whose honor it was renamed in 2013, and is supported by

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

and

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, botany, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is located in Laurel Hollow, New York, in Nassau County, on ...

Programs

All Alda Center programs are based on the Alda Method, a form of communication training that blends

improvisational theater Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv or impro in British English, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its ...

exercises and message-design strategies. The Method helps scientists and researchers connect more directly with listeners and respond more spontaneously to their needs. By 2020 there had been 15,000 attendees at these improv workshops. In 2012, Alda and the Center issued the "Flame Challenge", asking scientists to come up with the best explanation for a

flame A flame () is the visible, gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic chemical reaction made in a thin zone. When flames are hot enough to have ionized gaseous components of sufficient density, they are then considered plasm ...

for an intended audience of 11-year-olds.

References

External links

* {{official website Science communication Stony Brook University Brookhaven National Laboratory