Call to counter misinformation inspired office mates to launch science speaker series in the community

A guest lecture by their supervisor inspired office mates Alyssa Giovannangeli and Ben Sclodnick to become co-founders and science champions.

Professor Bruce Milliken had delivered his talk on misinformation and the human mind to students and faculty in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior. Milliken’s call for the university to counter misinformation struck a chord with Giovannangeli and Sclodnick. They asked Milliken if he’d give a command performance to an audience beyond McMaster. Milliken said yes – Giovannangeli and Sclodnick now had to find a way and a place to bring that audience together.

The duo already had more than enough work on their plates – Giovannangeli was in the final year of her master’s degree in psychology, neuroscience and behavior while Sclodnick had just completed his PhD in cognitive science and was now working in Milliken’s research group as a postdoctoral fellow.

But instead of organizing a one-and-done event, they decided to go all in as co-founders of Psychology LIVE. With help from their colleague Rafa Román-Caballero who’d done something similar in Spain, they launched a speaker series focused on psychological science and human behavior. Their community outreach initiative would feature local researchers sharing their findings and insights on important and timely topics of interest and relevance to a general audience.

Held on Monday evenings during the fall and winter at Fairweather Brewing Company in West Hamilton, Psychology LIVE’s inaugural season featured Milliken, postdoctoral fellow Dan Cameron and associate professor John Iverson, professor emeritus Daphne Maurer, associate professor Joe Kim and professor Milena Head. The second season kicks off Dec. 1 with Jonathan Fugelsang, a psychology professor at the University of Waterloo.

The line-up’s curated by the co-founders, with invitations extended to experts who know how to communicate science to non-scientists. They’ve focused on researchers who receive public funding so there’s no risk of speakers turning their talks into sales pitches and treating the audience like prospective clients and customers.

The talks were a hit right from the start, with anywhere from 80 to 110 people filling the brewery. About half of the audience are community members and strangers to Giovannangeli and Sclodnick.

While they’re surprised at how quickly Psychology LIVE took off, the co-founders always knew there was audience waiting for this kind of in-person event. “More and more of us spend our time at home watching science-entertainment on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok—we wanted to create a space for people to get together and connect over a shared love of science and learning,” says Sclodnick.

“People are hungry for reliable and credible science communication from people they can trust,” adds Giovannangeli.

There’s a bit of FOMO driving turnout – Psychology LIVE is an analog event in a digital world. The talks aren’t live-streamed or even recorded – there are only photos from past events posted on the Psychology LIVE website. This was initially a cost-saving move – Psychology LIVE runs on a shoestring budget – but the co-founders realized that keeping the events offline drives a deeper level of in-the-moment engagement between guest speakers and the audience.

Running a speaker series was a first for Giovannangeli and Sclodnick and it remains very much a passion project.

“It’s definitely not for the faint of heart,” says Sclodnick. Psychology LIVE doesn’t have any sponsors or benefactors yet and receives no departmental or university funding, relying solely on $10 general admission tickets to cover the $800 cost for each talk. Sclodnick pays upfront out of his own pocket for renting the brewery and picking up pizza and veggie trays from Fortinos – free snacks are included in the ticket price.  So far, every talk’s broken even with any extra revenue invested in the next talk.

“We’ve put a lot of work into creating the kind of events that we’d be excited to go to,” says Giovannangeli over Zoom. She’s working remotely on Psychology LIVE’s second season while pursuing her PhD in sport psychology 1,900 kilometres away at Florida State University (she’d been the mental skills coach with Mac’s varsity wrestling team while working on her master’s). “Hamilton is home, so it’s meant a lot to engage with my community through Psychology LIVE. I’ll continue to be as involved as I possibly can – it’s well worth the time.”

The co-founders believe Psychology LIVE can easily scale to other universities and communities. “It’s not just a fun thing to do – it’s an important way to champion science,” says Sclodnick.

Psychology LIVE earns high marks for its first guest speaker. “Launching this talk series was a big undertaking for Alyssa and Ben,” says Milliken. “They deserve tremendous credit for its success.”

Milliken says the duo are being kind when they credit his talk for inspiring Psychology LIVE. “At the time, I was wrestling with thoughts about the role of the university in stemming the tide of misinformation. But I’m sure both Alyssa and Ben already had well-formed thoughts about things the university could do to promote science communication and community engagement. All credit to them.”

Photo of Sclodnick and Giovannangeli during a Psychology LIVE talk by Marisa Settimi.