Registration strongly encouraged as space is limited: Two-hour hands-on workshop on distilling your science into a compelling story! Register here.  Zoom details to come.

Science Story Development

Science can be both engaging and empirical – if you know how to distill a cohesive story! Translate your technical content or personal experience into a story that is meaningful, memorable, and accurate. In this intensive workshop, each participant will draft and get feedback on a story treatment about a topic of choice. Great for developing a piece of writing or a presentation in any format.

Key Skills:

• Develop a cohesive and compelling story using strong narrative structure and relatable characters.
• Make your story broadly appealing while also considering the cultural context of your target audience.

Sara ElShafie is a global change biologist and science storytelling coach. She collaborates with artists in a wide range of industries to uncover the potential of storytelling to engage broad audiences with complex topics. ElShafie is the Founder and Principal of Science Through Story, LLC, dedicated to helping scientists and science educators connect with audiences through effective storytelling. She consults and runs workshops for groups ranging from graduate students to NASA scientists to theme park executives. She also organized a symposium, Science Through Narrative: Engaging Broad Audiences, with speakers from the scientific community as well as arts and entertainment industries, and curated a resulting published volume of open access papers. ElShafie holds a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago and a M.S. in Earth & Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is completing her PhD in Integrative Biology with the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley.