Connecting science with society so that public health is foundational to communities everywhere is a critical part of the Yale School of Public Health’s core mission. One way the school is pursuing this goal is through shared storytelling.

On March 24^th, Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) researchers, staff, and students — along with residents from the greater New Haven community — will gather at East Rock Brewing Company for a unique event entitled “Science & Storytelling.”

In this casual, off-campus setting, attendees ranging from emeritus YSPH faculty to budding student scientists and residents with an interest in public health will be invited to share short personal reflections about how science has shaped their lives.

The 90-minute event runs from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and is free, open to the public, and requires no advance registration. It is patterned after “The Moth,” a podcast and Peabody Award-winning radio show that features unscripted, live first-person storytelling, according to Holly Zoeller, YSPH assistant director of strategic engagements.

“The goal of the event is to help people see the ways in which science and public health show up in normal lives,” said Dr. Elisabeth Marnik, PhD, a scientist, educator, and executive director of The Evidence Collective, who helped organize the event.

Marnik said the event’s casual, community-facing, off-campus location is intentional.

“It’s held in a public space, like a brewery, to be in spaces where people hang out who may not necessarily otherwise attend a ‘science’ event,” said Marnik, who will serve as the evening’s master of ceremonies. “But they may overhear and be intrigued by the stories and be impacted that way.”

Marnik previously hosted a series of community science storytelling events in Maine, called “Taproom Tales,” and found that pairing science stories with a barroom setting created a good atmosphere. YSPH Dean Megan Ranney and Adjunct Assistant Professor Katelyn Jetelina — both accomplished and highly respected science communicators — knew of Marnik’s work and invited her to bring one of her sessions to New Haven.

Two of the evening’s storytellers — Wenyi (Jennie) Jiang, MPH ’27, and Semilore Babawale, MPH ’27 — are students in a YSPH public health communications course called “Navigating the Media Landscape for Maximum Public Health Impact.” The course is taught by Jetelina, an epidemiologist who founded the widely popular Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter, and YSPH lecturer Naria Halliwell, a former producer for ABC News.

For Jiang, a first-year student in the YSPH Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the event was the perfect opportunity to explore a new communication style. She said she hopes to work as a science communicator, and she has experience in health industry communication. But she has never done this kind of public storytelling before.

“This is my first experience of putting myself out there and using my own voice,” Jiang said. “It would be really nice to see the response from that, and whether or not I’d like to continue doing this kind of method of health communications in the future.”

Babawale, a first-year student in the YSPH Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, said she’s “both excited and nervous” about the event. Babawale enrolled in “Navigating the Media Landscape” as a way to push outside her comfort zone and practice skills that aren’t usually associated with her epidemiology track. She said the storytelling event is an opportunity to use the science communication skills she’s gained over the semester.

“I’m already challenging myself to take that class, and I want to be more comfortable speaking in a crowd,” Babawale said. “This event is a chance to see how much I’ve grown and to tell my story in front of people I don’t know very well.”

Other speakers listed for the event include Legairre Radden II, a research scientist with Boehringer Ingelheim and a Central Connecticut State University graduate; YSPH Community Impact Lab Program Manager Jason Martinez; and three speakers from the brain health and dementia alliance LiveWell: Emerita Professor of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale Marianne LaFrance, Emeritus Professor of Biology at Quinnipiac University Don Buckley, and Ellen Sue Moses, an advisory board member at the Empowerment Partnerships Network at LiveWell Alliance, who is living with dementia.

[Read More…]