Proper communication can go a long way transforming technical ideas and results into practical actions and solutions. Often, however, scientists struggle to communicate with “nonscientists” who do not share their technical knowledge and worldviews. In effect, we see some great technical ideas that never translate into action, as well as slow, even ineffective, political responses to several important scientific issues (e.g. climate change).

Dr. Abi Ghannam explains Science Communication as a field that explores ways to properly translate scientific and technical information into effective messages. Specifically, Dr. Abi Ghannam’s research examines: 1) ways to train scientists and engineers in strategic communication skills (such as developing training programs with tools for scientists and engineers to use when speaking or writing), along with 2) the reactions and responses of audiences to different communication strategies (such as how audiences process and understand scientific and technical information).

Starting this Spring 2020, Professor Abi Ghannam is leading the Semaan-endowed technical communication initiative—one of MSFEA’s initiatives that aim at transforming students’ university experience. The Communication Initiative focuses on developing supporting course content that can help undergraduate and graduate engineering students build their technical communication skills (e.g. writing, presentation, interpersonal, as well as public speaking skills). Such support will target existing course and lab communication tasks (e.g. reports, papers, presentations) through offering communication training workshops, resources and guidelines, as well as individual consultations. Each component in the program is tailored to match the level of communication proficiency of the students and will build on the content previously offered to the students at earlier stages. The program is currently in the planning and designing stage and will go into full implementation starting this coming Fall.

The breadth of the Communication Initiative might cause us to wonder: why should we care so much about communication skills? Good writing and communication, according to Professor Niveen, affects people’s perceptions of us. Not only do good reports or presentations reflect positively on the content of the work, but they also reveal a great deal about the authors’ qualities: whether they’re messy or meticulous, procrastinators or planners, and uninspired or creative.

So what does proper technical communication entail? Dr. Abi Ghannam stresses the importance of three main components in any effective communication: 1) a clear message that is mentioned early on, 2) sufficient and proper evidence along with citations and references to back up the message, and 3) adequate “packaging” of the information through appropriate phrasing and visuals to match the audience’s level of understanding of the topic. Her advice is to think of writing as a process, not a one-time task — to focus on the message content first, and on the elegance and embellishments next. Writers are often too worried about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, which distracts them from expressing good messages and ideas before they forget them. As a result, authors are encouraged to write whatever comes to their mind, without focusing too much on potential language errors, since proofreading can come at a later stage. This approach strongly aligns with the school of thought of another Semaan-endowed initiative: MSFEA’s design thinking initiative.

Many MSFEA students may find writing, and communication generally, to be tedious. They may perceive such tasks to be mismatched with their design or engineering degrees. Nevertheless, Dr. Abi Ghannam insists on the tight link between those “soft” skills and technical knowledge: they are the tools that allow scientists and engineers to share their knowledge with others so they can in turn build on it — an integral part of the scientific process. Moreover, your work is your second voice that can reveal to others so much about who you are as a person.