Webinar: Inclusive event facilitation: Challenges, best practices, and opportunities

From webinars and panels, to workshops and festivals—effective science communication often involves facilitating conversations with diverse individuals. But how do you ensure those conversations are welcoming and accessible to both speakers and participants?

In this PCST webinar, four international panelists will share opportunities and best practices for inclusive science communication event facilitation. They will draw on their experiences as practitioners, educators, and scholars to discuss common accessibility-related challenges for event moderation and organisation and strategies for overcoming them. Finally, they will discuss what “inclusive” facilitation really means, and offer thoughts on how to move beyond shallow notions of diversity and inclusion to engage more deeply with what these terms really mean in practice.

This webinar will conclude with an opportunity for audience members to ask questions, share concerns, and contribute their own experiences to the discussion.

Moderator

Ana Claudia Nepote (she/her), Member of the PCST Network’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee and Associate Professor at National Autonomous University of Mexico

Panelists

• Juliana Restrepo Cadavid (she/her), Director of Contents and Science Engagement at Parque Explora
• Thilina Heenatigala (he/him), Assistant Professor and Director of Communications, Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI)
• Nic Bennet (they/them), Postdoctoral Researcher with the Scicomm Identities Project at Michigan State University
• Michelle Riedlinger (she/her), Associate Professor, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology