Filter by author: Mónica I. Feliú Mójer

Comunicar la ciencia en Iberoamérica: un sobrevuelo por la región is the first book-length, regionally authored history of science communication across twelve Ibero-American countries, published to mark the 35th anniversary of RedPOP. Written by practitioners and researchers from within the field, it traces how science communication has developed, and often survived, across vastly different political landscapes, from colonial-era natural history museums to today's social media ecosystems. Particularly striking is how several chapters frame science communication not just as public education but as a form of cultural resistance and democratic resilience. The book has geographical and thematic gaps, but it fills a long-overdue space in the literature and should be on every science communicator's shelf.

CienciaPR, a nonprofit that brings together the largest network of Puerto Rican scientists and one of the largest networks of Hispanic/Latine scientists in the world, has collaborated with El Nuevo Día (END), Puerto Rico's newspaper of record, to increase culturally relevant stories in their science section. This Practice Insight quantifies and compares the presence of culturally relevant elements (e.g., referring to Puerto Rico, local landmarks, historic figures, slang) and other content information (e.g., topics, location, focus, protagonist) in articles authored by CienciaPR members versus articles by END, news agencies, and other organizations. Results demonstrate that CienciaPR-authored articles published in END featured culturally relevant elements more often (e.g., mentioned Puerto Rico, used Puerto Rican slang, stories located in Puerto Rico) than those by other sources.

The past 20 years of science communication have seen important progress towards inclusion, equity, and justice. In this commentary, I review some of those changes and discuss how culturally relevant science communication activities are part of a broad movement seeking to change the culture, research, and practice of science communication. I draw on my experiences as a practitioner working with the nonprofit organization Ciencia Puerto Rico (CienciaPR) to offer lessons for the whole field to continue to address past and present exclusions and injustices and avoid future ones.