Science communication

Science requires communication—our work only has an impact when it’s shared with others. Starting in my PhD, I have been involved in science communication focusing on both general and scientific audiences.

Publications and preprints

• Sitek, KR, Wearn, A, DuPre, EM. Communication is the foundation of an impactful and resilient scientific community. Aperture Neuro (accepted).
• Wearn A, Sitek KR, Valk SL, Forkel SJ. The Organization for Human Brain Mapping Time Machine: A freely accessible archive of Annual Meeting talks on YouTube. Aperture Neuro. 2025;5(SI 2). doi:10.52294/​001c.138647

Teaching

Northwestern University CSD 550-3: Communicating Science. Why do we share our research? How do we best communicate research with different audiences? What are best practices in oral, written, visual, and multimedia communication? This course helps Northwestern PhD students craft their own scientific narrative and develop communication skills for sharing their work with diverse audiences.

Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM)

I first attended OHBM in 2025 and have attended almost every meeting since then. I got involved with the Student–Postdoc Special Interest Group in 2019, helping share the cool mentorship and training work being organized by our students and postdocs. Later, I joined the Communications Committee, where I edited (and sometimes appeared in) podcasts and blogs, maintained the burgeoning OHBMonthly member newsletter, and helped kick off a new annual award winner blog series and a quarterly newsletter in collaboration with The Transmitter from the Simons Foundation.

• OHBM Communications Committee Member, 2021–2025
  • Chair, 2023–24
  • Blog Team Lead, 2022–2023
• Student–Postdoc Special Interest Group, 2019–2021
  • Social Media and Communications Lead

Neurosalience, the OHBM podcast

Podcast Team co-founder and editor, 2021–22

Neurosalience podcast appearances

• S5E13: OHBM 2025 preview with Jean Chen, Marta Garrido, Michael Breakspear, and Lena Oestreich (co-hosted by Kevin Sitek)
• S4E19: A Preview of OHBM 2024 in Seoul with Sofie Valk, Kevin Sitek, and Hae-Jeong Park
• S3E09: An interview with OHBM’s ComCom
• S2E20: Turning the microphone around on Peter Bandettini (guest hosted by Kevin Sitek)

OHBM Blog author

• Interview with Dr. Laura V. Cuaya, winner of the NeuroImage Editor’s Choice Award 2023
• New meeting dates for OHBM 2023 in Montreal: July 22–26, 2023
• A Conversation with Takafumi Minamimoto (OHBM 2023 Keynote Interview Series Pt. 6) (co-author)
• A conversation with 2023 Talairach Lecture presenter Hongkui Zeng (co-author)
• Introducing the OHBM2022 Series with a conversation on conferences in the era of COVID-19 (co-author)
• OHBM aims to Sparkle at its 2021 virtual meeting
• A conversation on conferences in the era of COVID-19

YouTube appearances

• Two MIT Neuroscientists Explain Yanny vs. Laurel (with Dana Boebinger)

Media appearances

These Scientists Set out to Build a Silent Room, But Discovered Something Way More Terrifying Claire Maldarelli, Popular Mechanics (quotes and background)

Science in the News

In grad school, I got involved in sharing science beyond the lab through Science in the News, a public science outreach program led by Harvard University PhD students. Throughout my time with SITN, I edited blog posts by grad students for the general public and eventually took over the Twitter page, regularly compressing 1000 word blog posts down to 140 (and then 280) characters—while (hopefully) staying interesting!

• Social Media Outreach Lead, 2015–2019
• Editor, Science in the News Blog, 2013–2018
• Author, Can Computers Use Brain Scans to Diagnose Psychiatric Disorders?
• Co-Lead Editor, Neuroscience Special Edition