We are delighted to announce that NPR and Planet Money reporter David Kestenbaum will join us in Cambridge, MA on January 24th to deliver the keynote address for the January 2014 ComSciCon-local workshop.  

David Kestenbaum has been a correspondent for NPR since 1999, covering science, energy and now the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. He came to journalism the usual way — by coming to Harvard for a Ph.D. in particle physics first.  David has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.  He is a frequent contributor to the popular public radio show This American Life, set up a radio journalism program in Cambodia as a Fulbright fellow, and teaches a journalism class at Johns Hopkins University.

David will speak at 4pm on January 24th at the Geological Lecture Hall at Harvard University, 24 Oxford St. in Cambridge.  His lecture is open to the public, with seating on a first-come-first-served basis.  His talk title and abstract are:

 “How to Tell A Story in 4 Minutes”

After getting a degree in physics (and after a girlfriend left him for a writer) David Kestenbaum decided on a career change.  He wanted to write about science instead.   David ended up at National Public Radio where he learned how to pack a whole narrative into just four minutes.   He’ll share secrets for finding good stories, and translating complicated topics into plain English.

The January 2014 ComSciCon-local workshop is a two day event, on January 13th and 24th, for graduate students to learn techniques for communicating complex and technical concepts to broad and diverse audiences.  Graduate students at Harvard and MIT can apply for ComSciCon-local 2014 now through December 20th.  This inaugural ComSciCon-local event will be held in collaboration with the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.