How to talk to a non-specialist

Although writing research papers and giving talks is part of a scientist’s job, any training for these skills is often ad-hoc and often focusses on speaking to one’s own community. However, science is becoming ever more collaborative and interdisciplinary, which is often made difficult by communication barriers. As an editor on a journal that strives to speak to all physicists, it is part of my job to break down these barriers and help our authors talk to a broader audience. In this talk, I will share some basic principles that facilitate communication across subject borders.

Nina Meinzer is a Senior Editor & Team Leader at Nature Physics. They received their PhD in optical physics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, and spent several years as a postdoc at the University of Exeter, UK. In 2016, Nina started their editorial career at Nature Communications before moving to Nature Physics in 2019, where they look after a broad range of optics and photonics papers. As Team Leader, Nina is responsible for the journal’s non-primary content, which aligns well with their passion for science communication.