I'm Flora Lichtenen and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the show, bringing the public into science. Whose job is that?

There's no line item asking, well, what have you done lately with communicating to the public?

It ain't there.

I don't have to tell you that it is a precarious time for U.S. science. Federal funding is being

slashed, career scientists laid off, and researchers are considering leaving to work abroad.

On top of that, public trust in science and experts has declined. So for a lot of scientists, it's a time of reflection. What are we doing

wrong? What should we be doing differently? And to quote David Byrne, how did we get here?

Joining us with a perspective on these big questions is Felice Frankel, a science photographer

and a research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

She's also the author of the upcoming book, Phenomenal Moments, Revealing the Hidden Science

All Around Us out this fall.

Felice, welcome back to Science Friday.

Wonderful, wonderful to be here. Thanks,

Flora. You wrote me and you suggested we have a conversation about how, in your opinion,

the research community has failed in bringing the public into our world. I am very interested

in that, too, obviously, is what I do for a living. So I want to start

there. In your view, how is the research community failed the public? Yeah, it's a really important

question. And it's possible some of my colleagues will not agree with me, but I'm going to give

it a shot. Well, I like that as a way to start. Yeah,

let's get in it. For the most part, when I gather young researchers on campus for a workshop

in graphics, what we do is we look at the way they are visually representing their work.

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