Making the move  from science to communication: my own case history.

How do you become a science writer? I wish I had a straightforward answer, but the world is complicated. Like there are countless recipes for making a Sachertorte, you may have a zillion of possible starts for getting into science writing. One key distinction in the field is between science writers who have a scientific background and those who don’t. I  definitively fit into the first category.

If you believe the bio on some of my books,a radiation incident in my lab that turned me into an evil science-writing superhero. I admit, the story was actually a little fictionalized. So here’s the truth.

Jackyll and Hyde

I moved from research to science communication in 1997, two years after I got a PhD in molecular biology in Paris. At the time, I was a post-doc in Italy and I don’t recall any radioactivity changing my life overnight. But I do remember living an awkward double life for some time.

On days, I was a Dr. Jackyll surrounded by all the paraphernalia of the modern life scientist. At nights, just when my young fellows engaged in more grooving nocturnal activities, I morphed into a Mr. Hyde of science journalism. My alter ego pushed me to write and to harass the editors of magazines until they gave me a serious assignment. A few months later, I was signing news stories for Nature, The Lancet and the New Scientist. My double life soon was appealing but difficult to manage. It was time to make a decision and I let Mr. Hyde take over.

In 2001, an internship at Scientific American in New York was a turning point in my career. It was a great, enriching professional experience, and the beginning of a freelance collaboration with “the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in America”. The next year, I was a journalist fellow at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, thanks to a fellowship from the Armenise-Harvard Foundation.

A broad range

Back to Italy, I invested on a PC, a fax, a 56K modem and a brand new Ikea desk and set up business in my apartment. I tried to be creative and to keep my range as broad as possible. Besides journalism, I worked as a translator, a ghost writer, a reviewer for textbooks.

My research background also led me to work as a consultant for science organisations. My first job was setting up a website and an info line about hereditary diseases for Telethon, a charity that financed my post-doc (the site was a success). For the next twelve years, until 2010, I was at  Telethon as a publicist, a head of science communication and consultant for research development. Fast forward to the present day, where I work as a freelance journalist and a consultant for various organisations and EU projects.

So that’s the way I started. Just one among many possible starts, as I said. At the beginning, I did all the mistakes that you expect from a scientist turned into a self-taught science-writer, and I learned from them. Many of the tricks that I explain during my workshops in science communication for researchers, are indeed the result of my own  trials and errors.

And here comes a free piece of advice: if you are a scientist, don’t think of science writing as an easier alternative to research. Sure, research is a cut-throat publish-or-perish jungle. But consider this: there are many more jobs around for researchers than for science writers. There are many more peer-reviews journals for scientists than popular magazines, radio and TV opportunities for science journalists. Living as a science writer can be as hard and competitive as doing science. Or even worse, sometimes. Now you have been warned.

Finally, what happened to Dr. Jackyll? Do I miss my old life as a scientist? Yes, I do sometimes. However, as a science communicator I feel to be an integral part of the scientific community. It’s just that my role has changed. And when Jackyll resurfaces, and I miss being in the lab, I can still pay a visit to my lab-rat friends around the world.