PUBLIC EDUCATION AND OUTREACH – ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR EARLY CAREER SUCCESS

Public outreach is often targeted for scorn and dismissal among academics. Indeed, for most tenure-track faculty, it is reasonable to expect that outreach work often becomes relegated to the bottom of the Curriculum Vita, well after publications, teaching activity, research, and even service to the instutition. In my presentation, I will share how I became involved in public outreach work, and how embracing such work opened new avenues for my career, becoming the cornerstone for my grant funding successes, improvement in classroom teaching, and even my scholarly activity and publications. I plan on concluding the talk with some thoughts on why, even for those of us who don't think public engagement is their strong suit, outreach is something that any scientist can, and should, do very well, and why it should manifest itself throughout your CV, not just at the end.