Dr. Marshall Shepherd has many titles: Associate Director of Climate Science and Outreach, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor, Director of Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia.
He has also garnered many accolades over the years, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, receipt of the 2024 American Association of Geographers Presidential Achievement Award, and selection as the 2022 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Professor of the Year (just to name a few).
However, alongside his commitment to the sciences, he has also excelled as a science communicator. In a recent article, which was invited by the National Academy of Engineering, Shepherd spoke to the stigmas associated with devoting oneself to make science accessible to a wide audience, and why those stigmas are unfounded–and even harmful to a central part of the scientific process: disseminating findings.
“Academic critiques of science popularization are often based on the premise that being a science popularizer and having a successful academic career are mutually exclusive. Dr. Martinez-Conde shows that narratives about the efficacy of popularizers in academia are flawed. Using quantitative data like citation indices and impact scores, she found no substantial evidence that science dissemination impeded a successful academic career. Heck, I am living proof of that too,” Shepherd writes in the article.
Read the full story here.