ComSciCon Houston 2017
We aim to strengthen students’ science communication skills through hands-on professional development training and exposure to the local expert community.
ComSciCon Houston provides a unique avenue to encourage graduate students in the Houston community to invest in their science communication skills. This two-day workshop will teach participants how to effectively communicate scientific content in their field to broad and diverse audiences and inspire students to seek opportunities to use these newly acquired skills. Each day will include two expert panel discussions, each with a specific underlying theme, such as communicating science to general audiences through writing, communicating via multimedia, communicating science in policy, and guidance for seeking careers in science communication. The workshop will also feature a keynote speaker, who will be an invited expert with significant contributions to the field of science communication. Participants will have the opportunity to expand their professional network by interacting with the speakers and experts during organized social events. Finally, participants will be required to hone their science communication skills in an interactive “write-a-thon” component and will produce either a popular science article or video storyboard by the end of the workshop.
Read the full proposal here.
North Pond – a Musical at the Moody Center
“North Pond” is an original musical with music by composer Ben Morris and a book by Will Inman to be performed at the Moody Center in Spring 2017.
“North Pond” is an original musical with music by Rice University composer Ben Morris and book by University of Houston playwright Will Inman. The two are collaborating on the lyrics. The plot follows Chelsea Marlowe, a reporter investigating the life of hermit and thief Christopher Knight, a man who had lived alone in the backwoods of Maine for 27 years. Their interview in a jail visiting room is interjected with memories from Christopher’s time in the woods, as she grapples to understand his decisions while trying to assemble a story about his life, eventually realizing that the story is not what she expected. The musical will be in one act and will be just shy of an hour long. The staging of the piece is simple – it would be divided in half– on one side, the prison visiting room (an interview table), and on the other Chris’s forest camp – a pile of junk surrounding a tent and a lean-to, colored by light projections simulating seasons to create a feeling of the “woods.” The project will bring together Houston artists in a variety of disciplines – video artists and projectionists (though VADA – the audio-visual media department at Rice University), the book-writer and director Will Inman at the University of Houston, singers and musicians from the Shepherd School of Music, and set designers from the Rice University and University of Houston theater departments as well as professionals in the Houston theater scene. Lighting, projection, and set design will be minimal, with a few effects conveying a feeling of location, environment, and certain events. The musical language of the piece is in between opera and contemporary musical theater and features a six-piece ensemble, a rhythm section, and a five-person chorus comprised of Shepherd School of Music students who will perform the available space in the Moody Center. Rehearsals will be sprinkled over four to five weeks from winter to early spring with a performance ideally in April or May 2016.