C NFERENCE
URMA
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
9:45 a.m.
Backstage Tour of the Georgia Aquarium, Visit to the Center for Civil and
Human Rights. URMA members who opted for the four-day conference program
will visit the Georgia Aquarium and the Center for Civil and Human Rights on
July 7. We’ll have about two hours to explore the Aquarium and eat lunch before
the first backstage tours begin. We’ll divide into two smaller groups for the
tours. Your name badge will specify your tour group, and you’ll have a gift card
to purchase lunch at the Aquarium’s cafeteria. We’ll visit the civil rights center
with Daniel Amsterdam, an assistant professor of modern U.S. history at Georgia
Tech. The tours will depart from the motor lobby of the Georgia Tech Hotel and
Conference Center. We’ll return to the hotel by around 5 p.m.
Backstage at the Georgia Aquarium
Dinner will be on your own Tuesday.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
7:45 a.m.
Registration and Breakfast at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center.
Conference Room B, Second Floor.
8:30 a.m.
Welcome: Michael Warden, Vice President, Institute Communications, Georgia Institute of Technology
8:45 a.m.
Bringing the Audience In: Finding Compelling Details in Science Stories. As a
newspaper and magazine journalist and author of two award-winning books, Maryn
McKenna — formerly a staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now a
contributor to National Geographic — has reported from epidemics and disasters
around the globe. In this presentation, she will explore how to find narrative
movement and compelling details in stories about university science, even if your
communications budget won’t allow you to travel farther than across campus.
9:45 a.m.
Break
10:00 a.m.
Re-Engineering Research Horizons Magazine. Georgia Tech’s Research
Horizons magazine won a gold award for magazine publishing improvement
this year in the CASE Circle of Excellence competition. Four staff members will
discuss the challenges and solutions they came up with in collaboration with their
design consultant, Pentagram – Austin. Speakers will include Erica Endicott, the
magazine’s art director; Rob Felt, Georgia Tech’s photographer; Melanie Goux, who
created the web version of the magazine; and John Toon, the magazine’s editor
and Georgia Tech’s director of research news. The discussion will be moderated by
Kirk Englehardt, Georgia Tech’s director of research communications.
Maryn McKenna
11:30 a.m.
Lunch, Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center. Lunch will be in the hotel’s dining room on the first floor. After
lunch the annual conference will reconvene in Conference Room B, Second Floor of the hotel.
1:00 p.m.
The Conversation: An Unconventional Opportunity for Faculty Experts and
Authors. The Conversation U.S. (TCUS) is a new digital platform for news and
analysis written by academics, edited by journalists and aimed at the general
public. A nonprofit, TCUS is supported by foundations and promotes its articles
to republishers through its creative commons license. Since its launch in October
2014, the TCUS editorial team has worked with more than 650 academics and
200 universities from across the United States. Maria Balinska, managing editor
of The Conversation, will discuss TCUS, and Joe Kays, director of research
communications at the University of Florida, will discuss how he has worked with
TCUS to gain visibility for his researchers.
2:15 p.m.
Break
2:30 p.m.
Building Faculty Communications Plans. Visibility is important for faculty members who want to build national
reputations and grow their research programs. Three Georgia Tech faculty members will share how they plan their
communications outreach and how they determine which opportunities to pursue. Ian Bogost is a professor in
the School of Literature, Communication and Media; Mark Prausnitz is a professor in the School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering; and Dan Goldman is a professor in the School of Physics.
3:45 p.m.
Break, and move to the Historic Academy of Medicine, 875 West Peachtree
Street. The Historic Academy of Medicine is an easy walk from the hotel.
4:30 p.m.
Dan Winters Photography. Dan Winters is a photographer known for his celebrity
portraiture, photojournalism, and illustrations. He has won numerous awards,
including a first place World Press Photo Award and the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award
for Magazine Photography. His work appears in many national and international
publications, including WIRED, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker,
Vanity Fair, GQ, Time and Rolling Stone. He has had multiple solo gallery
exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles, and a solo exhibition at the Telfair
Museum Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah.
5:45 p.m.
Maria Balinska
Historic Academy of Medicine
Reception and Dinner, Historic Academy of Medicine
Thursday, July 9, 2015
9:30 a.m.
Tours of Georgia Tech Research/Commercialization Programs. URMA registrants selected one of these tours
when they registered. Tours of robotics, energy and the clean room will depart by bus from the hotel’s motor
lobby at 9:30. Those participating in the tour of the incubator and technology transfer programs will meet their
host, Péralte Paul, in the hotel lobby at 9:30. A box lunch will be provided on the third floor of the Scheller
College of Business at 11:30, and the URMA annual conference will reconvene in Room 202 of the Scheller
College at 1 p.m.
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Clean Room (Marcus Nanotechnology Building), Paul Joseph, host.
Energy Research (Carbon-Neutral Energy Solutions Building), Allison Davis, host.
Incubator and Technology Transfer Programs (Centergy Building), Péralte Paul, host.
Robotics Research (College of Computing Building), Josie Giles, host.
11:30 a.m.
Box Lunch, Third Floor, Scheller College of Business
Afternoon Sessions will be in room 202 of the Scheller College of Business. Please note food and drink are not permitted in
the lecture hall where we’ll be meeting.
1:00 p.m.
Humor in Science: Pete Ludovice and Lew
Lefton. Pete Ludovice is an associate professor
of chemical and biomolecular engineering by
day and a stand-up comedian by night. He
is currently engaged in a National Science
Foundation project on the use of humor to
improve engineering education, and is touring
with his one-man show, “Feel the Power of
the Dork Side.” Lew Lefton is currently on the
mathematics faculty and serving as director of
information technology for College of Sciences.
Lefton is an accomplished and experienced
comedian who has done stand up and improv
comedy for over 25 years.
Pete Ludovice
Lew Lefton
2:00 p.m.
Communications Challenges of Ebola: Mary Loftus (Emory University) and
Cynthia Crick (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). When the first
Ebola patients ever to set foot in the U.S. arrived at Emory University Hospital in
August, Emory’s communicators learned what it’s like to cover a huge international
story that lands on your doorstep. Emory Medicine magazine editor Mary Loftus
will share what she learned—and how it might help other editors deal with big
news. Cynthia Crick faced the same issues, but from the perspective of a federal
agency. As health communications specialist with the CDC’s Ebola response,
she will describe the challenges of communicating to both external and internal
audiences during a major health event.
3:15 p.m.
Break
3:30 p.m.
UAV Reporting: The Future of News and Communications in UAVs. News
organizations are eager to use unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. “drones”) in their reporting, but current federal
rules forbid. CNN and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have been working together to clarify the
issues involved in using UAVs. Speakers will include Mike Heiges, principal research engineer with the Georgia
Tech Research Institute; Dave Price, senior research technologist with the Georgia Tech Research Institute; and
Greg Agvent, senior director of news operations for CNN/US.
4:30 p.m.
Fire Hose Sessions: URMA Members Share Great Ideas in Five Minutes (or Less)
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5:30 p.m.
Dr. Kent Brantly thanks the doctors
and nurses who took care of him
at Emory University. (Credit: Jack
Kearse)
Coffee Talks: Communication with Research Administrators, Joe Kays (University of Florida).
Creativity when the Cupboard Is Bare, Nick Houtman (Oregon State University).
Producing Quality Research Videos with Your iPhone, Melanie Goux (Georgia Tech).
Writing about Mathematics, Catherine Zandonella (Princeton University).
Cash Poor, Data Rich Audience Research, Kathi Wallace (Georgia Tech).
Working with Illustrators, Erica Endicott (Georgia Tech).
Communicating Animal Research, Natasha Martineau (Imperial College).
Dinner on Your Own
You’re officially on your own for dinner, but several URMA members are organizing visits to local restaurants.
Check the signup sheets in the meeting room.
Friday, July 10, 2015
8:30 a.m.
Breakfast, Scheller College of Business, Third Floor.
Annual conference will reconvene in Room 202 of the Scheller College of Business.
9:00 a.m.
Trends in University Use of Social Media: Paige Brown Jarreau. Paige Jarreau
will describe how science communicators can effectively use social media to reach
both lay audiences and reporters, how they can guide scientists in enhanced use
of social media, and how use of social media may impact public engagement in
science. Jarreau is a bio/nanotechnology scientist turned journalist, with an M.S. in
biological and agricultural engineering.
10:00 a.m.
Break
10:15 a.m.
Three Views of Social Media in Research. Social media has become vital to
universities and nonprofits that wish to engage with their audiences. In this final
session of the 2015 annual conference, we’ll hear from the manager of a universitywide social media strategy ranked among the best in the U.S., the director of a
broad-based university blog, and the editor of an URMA member magazine with a
Twitter feed devoted to a relatively narrow field of research. Steven Norris (Georgia
Tech) will explain the Institute’s university-wide social media plan; Carol Clark
(Emory University) will describe the eScienceCommons blog, and Kathryn Jepsen
(Symmetry) will discuss the magazine’s success with its Twitter feed.
11:45 a.m.
URMA Business Meeting
Paige Brown Jarreau
12:30 p.m. Adjourn
Academy of Medicine
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To Campus
5TH STREET
SPRING STREET
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WEST PEACHTREE STREET
Scheller College of Business
Georgia Tech Hotel