ATGthePodcast 283 - A Conversation with Stephen Webster, Director, Science Communication Unit, Imperial College, London
Against the Grain - The Podcast
Release Date: 07/07/2025
Against the Grain - The Podcast
The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate across sectors. Today’s episode features the next conversation from the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. Meg White, Senior Consultant, Delta Think, and a Conference...
info_outlineAgainst the Grain - The Podcast
The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate across sectors. Today’s episode features the next conversation from the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. Meg White, Senior Consultant, Delta Think, and a Conference...
info_outlineAgainst the Grain - The Podcast
The following interview is the first in this year’s Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate across sectors Today’s episode features Meg White, Senior Consultant, Delta Think, and a Conference Director, who talks with Roger Schonfeld, Managing Director of JSTOR Digital...
info_outlineAgainst the Grain - The Podcast
Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ross Mounce, Director of Open Access, Arcadia, a family philanthropy. A paleontologist, Ross has a PhD in evolutionary biology. When he began his PhD research at the University of Bath, he realized the lack of access to research papers and the data, and he believed researchers need to be more open and transparent with their work. Ross began working with Acadia around 8 years ago. Since 2002, Arcadia has awarded $1.3 billion to organizations around the world. Arcadia funding areas...
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Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Herbert Van de Sompel, Researcher Fellow at Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) and Guest Professor at Ghent University. Although Herbert has spent the last 25 to 30 years working in libraries, he doesn't describe himself as a librarian but as what he calls an “infrastructure plumber.” With a background in mathematics and information science, he has done years of infrastructure work within the library to allow technology to be used to improve research communication....
info_outlineAgainst the Grain - The Podcast
This episode is sponsored by and contains corporate sponsored content. All content is provided by . The views, opinions, and content expressed during this sponsored episode are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast or the Charleston Hub. Sponsorship does not imply endorsement of any products, services, or statements made during the episode. Thank you to Moara.io for supporting ATG the Podcast and its mission to connect librarians, publishers, and vendors. : (a next gen literature review workflow tool), “Organize and review your research...
info_outlineAgainst the Grain - The Podcast
Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Adam Hyde, Founder, Coko (Collaborative Knowledge Foundation). Adam is known for innovating in publishing. In this conversation, he talks about an interesting career progression and how he transitioned into scholarly publishing. Born in New Zealand, he earned his master’s in philosophy at Waikato, a small University. However, he began his career managing community radio in the 1990s, becoming manager of the station after applying numerous times for the position. He built a...
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Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Abel Packer, Co-Founder, SciELO. In this conversation, Abel talks about beginning his career in engineering and computer science, working on UN demographic data projects in Latin America and creating the early bibliographic system, DocPop. He then earned his Masters in Library Science and, in 1997, co-founded SciELO, a decentralized, open access platform, to improve both visibility and access to Latin American Scientific Journals. Beginning with only 10 journals, SciELO is now used...
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Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Joy Connolly, President, American Council of Learned Societies. Joy has been President of ACLS since 2019. Prior to this, she was provost and interim president of the CUNY Graduate Center. Joy says she has always had an interest in the classics and has written two books on Roman Political Theory and rhetoric and is currently working on her third. In this conversation, Joy talks about the turn from a highly successful academic career to taking on the role at the nonprofit ACLS, which is...
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Today’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rob Johnson, Managing Director, Founder, Research Consulting. Rob Johnson is founder and CEO of Research Consulting, well-known in scholarly publishing for investigations into policy. In this interview, we talk with Rob about his background and talk about his group’s recent large-scale reports on society publishing. Social Media: LinkedIn: Twitter: Keywords: #AcademicWriting, #AcademicNetworking, #ScholarlyWriting, #PublishingAdvice #GlobalAcademia #career #collaboration...
info_outlineToday’s episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Stephen Webster, Director, Science Communication Unit, Imperial College, London.
Stephan began his career by studying biology and the life sciences and attended Cambridge University where he studied the philosophy of science, and became interested in how science is understood and taught. He spent several years as a secondary school science teacher in London and eventually led one of the first science communication master’s programs, and is currently a senior lecturer at Imperial College. Stephen believes that engaging and listening to the public is very important with science communication to build trust, and to see the public as partners who could be very knowledgeable. He also says that good science is built on well-supported scientists.
The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/yG6kJtvfx7A
Social Media:
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-webster-36723853/
Twitter:
Keywords: #SciComm, #ScienceCommunication #PublicEngagement #ScienceEducation #HigherEducation #OpenScience #ResearchCulture #EthicsInScience #CommunityEngagement #LibraryInnovation #Innovation #LibraryJobs #career #collaboration #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts