Paige Brown Jarreau, Ph.D.

EXPERIENCE AT A GLANCE

Owner, From the Lab Bench LLC. (2023 - present)

Contractor, NIH Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias. (Jan 2023 - present)

VP of Science Communication, LifeOmic. Co-founder of Lifeology.io. (2019 - 2022)

  • As VP of Science Communication, I developed and drove social and science communications about the company's health software and health education platforms. I worked with various clients, audiences and stakeholders to create illustrated, accessible, and culturally relevant stories about science and health research. These were published at Lifeology.io, a science-art platform I co-founded. With Lifeology, I helped bring scientists, health experts, artists, and storytellers together to improve how science and health information are communicated. I'm passionate about helping science/health experts and organizations create more health-literate, accessible, engaging, actionable, inviting, and equitable stories and educational materials about pressing science and health topics. I believe collaboration with professional creatives is the best way to do this.

Science Communication Specialist, Louisiana State University College of Science. (2016 - 2020). 

  • Supported the development of communication skills among LSU College of Science faculty and students. Founded the LSU College of Science blog and created content for newsletters, research magazines, social media, press releases, and more. 

Freelance Science Writer. (2016 - present).

  • Altmetric.com blog (monthly “High Five” series); University of Tennessee Chattanooga; EMBO Reports; Nature magazine; Scientific American; LSE Impact blog; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (web); NIH Catalyst & I am Intramural blog

SciLogs.com Science Blogs Community Manger, Spektrum der Wissenschaft. (2013 - 2016).

  • Recruited new bloggers, edited blog posts, managed social media accounts. 

Lamar Postdoctoral Fellow, Manship School of Mass Communication. (2015 - 2016). 

  • Taught and conducted research in the fields of science communication and emerging media

Graduate Assistant, LSU Research Communications Coastal Initiative. (2013 - 2014)

  • Wrote press releases, feature stories for research magazines and web, and social media updates. 

Science Communication Internship, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Science writing and blogging; Science News exhibit support. (Summer 2013)

Research Assistant, Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis. Designed gold nanoparticles for PET imaging and cancer diagnostics. (2011 – 2012)

Intern, LSU College of Engineering News. (2011 - 2012)

Managing Editor, community blog Student Voices at Scitable by Nature Education. (2011 - 2012)

Engineering & Science Tutor, LSU Cox Center for Academic Success. (2008 - 2009).

INVITED TALKS AND LECTURES

AAAS 2019 Flash Talk on the #scientistswhoselfie project

Social Media: Engaging for Impact in STEM, invited keynote and social media workshop at Georgia Tech, 2017. Talk slides.

Science Bloggers and Scientists, Journalists and More, invited panel talk at Kavli/MIT Symposium on Science Communication, "Are We All Science Journalists Now?" hosted by MIT in Boston, 2016.

Science Blogs, Storytelling and Evidence-based Science Communication, invited Keynote speech at Liikutu tiedosta, science communication conference hosted by Kaskas Media, The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies and The Committee for Public Information, in Helsinki, Finland, June 2016.

Science Communication, A Science and An Art, invited main plenary session talk at SciCom15, an all-island science communication conference in Athlone, Ireland. Talk slides.

Social Media for the Research Communicator, invited talk at the 2015 University Research Magazine Association (URMA) Conference, July 2015. Conference Program Link.

Science Communication and Social Media, guest seminar for Louis Stokes Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation for STEM students, Louisiana State University, April 2015.

Science Blogging, guest lecture invited by Dominique Brossard, LSC 875, Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, #uwlsc875, April 2015.

All the Science That’s Fit to Blog – An Exploration of Science Blog Sociology, Advancing Research Communication and Scholarship 2015 Conference, Philadelphia, April 2015. Conference Schedule. Blog post.

Keynote, SciLogs Blogger Meeting, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Heidelberg, Germany, November 2014.

Covering Ebola, Crisis Communications Guest Lecture, Manship School of Mass Communication, November 2014.

Science Communication, Media and Policy Process Guest Lecture, Manship School of Mass Communication, November 2013. Slides.

Social Media for Scientists, Brown-Bag Lecture, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, October 2013. Slides. Blog post.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Using Instagram to Boost Your Science, Jan - Feb 2017. Link. Online course designed and delivered with the LSU Communication across the Curriculum and SciFund Challenge. Materials: Week 1; Week 2; Week 3.

MC 4971 Digital Storytelling, LSU, Spring 2016. Syllabus online.

MC 4971 Science Communication, LSU, Fall 2015

MC 4002 Strategic Social Media, LSU, Spring 2014 and 2015. An analysis of course Twitter outcomes conducted through a class survey.

MC 4971 Coastal Environmental Communication, LSU, Fall 2014. Course developed by Paige Brown Jarreau and Zeynep Altinay.

WORKSHOPS

Science Communication Seminar Series for LifeOmic Guest Bloggers, 2018 - present

Science Communication in Brief: Elevator Talks, 2017. Presented an hour-long in-person workshop to help scientists develop their elevator pitches and research narratives. (Delivered at LSU and Georgia Tech). Talk slides.

Social Media For Scientists, August 2016. Presented an hour-long virtual workshop on social media for science communication for the JPB Environmental Health Fellows at the Harvard School of Public Health. Talk slides.

AEJMC SouthEast Colloquium Science Communication Pre-Conference, 2016. Organized the event and will be presenting at and/or moderating panels on the practice and ethics of science storytelling. Program link.

National Association of Science Writers Idea Grant (2015) for Show Me the Coast: Telling Stories & Using Visuals for Coastal Environmental Communication, 2015 Workshop. Co-PIs: Zeynep Altinay, Paige Brown Jarreau, Amy Reynolds. Funded at $5,000.

SELECT WRITING PORTFOLIO

LIFE Apps lead editor and writing, 2018 - present

LSU Science Blog, lead writer. 2016 - 2018. 

An explosion of alternatives: Considering the future of science journalism. Science and Society, EMBO Reports (2014). 15, 827-832. Paige Brown. Link.

A Mobius strip of scientific imagination: How deep does the relationship between science fiction and science go? Science and Society, EMBO Reports (2013). Paige Brown. 11, 959–963. Link.

Loneliness at the bench: Is the PhD experience as emotionally taxing as it is mentally challenging? Science and Society, EMBO Reports (2013). Paige Brown. 5, 405–409. Link.

Nothing but the truth: Are the media as bad at communicating science as scientists fear? Science and Society, EMBO Reports (2012). Paige Brown. 13, 964 – 967. Link.

Atopy: Marching with allergies, Nature (2011). Paige Brown. 479, S14–S15. Link.

Nanomedicine: Swarming towards the target, Nature Materials (2011). Yucai Wang, Paige Brown, Younan Xia. 10, 482–483. Link.

Hepatitis A Outbreak: How A Frozen Berry And Pomegranate Mix Could Sicken 97. Forbes Blog, Guest Correspondent, 14 June 2013. (Image by Paige Brown) Link.

Colder Than Ice: Researchers Discover How Microbes Survive in Subfreezing Conditions, Scientific American Guest Blog, October 2013. Link.

Zombie Ants and a Cultural Obsession, Scientific American Guest Blog, July 2013. Link.

Delicate Muse: Louisiana landscapes provide inspiration for artists. LSU Research Communications, 5 July 2013. Link.

The Not-So-Mysterious Loss of Salt Marshes and Ecosystem Services, Scientific American Guest Blog, March 2013. Link.

Catalytic Clothing–Purifying Air Goes Trendy, Scientific American Guest Blog, March 2012. Link.

Hofmann Forest Provides Home and Hope for Bats, Naturalist Magazine, Special to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Photography Link.

New Dinosaur Skulls as Easy as 3D Printing, Special to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

Founder, Crowd-funding Participatory Science Journalism Project #OpenSciLogs. Outbreak Abroad. Indiegogo Link. Blog Post Link.

Founder, Crowd-funding Participatory Science Journalism Project #OpenSciLogs. The Evolution of Popular Science. Indiegogo Link. Blog Post Link.

LSU College of Engineering News, Bridging the Gap: LSU Professor Helps Biological & Ag. Engineering Students Take Research from Lab to Business (Oct. 28, 2011, featured in BR BuisnessReport.com)

RESEARCH SUMMARY

My research interests include the intersection of science communication, social media and media sociology. My early research as a PhD student in mass communication investigated the values science communicators assume in their audiences as well as the practices of environmental communicators and how these intersect with best practices endorsed by environmental psychologists. My PhD dissertation and subsequent research has focused on the practices of science bloggers and the reach of science blogs in terms of who reads them and why.

Today the internet is the top source of science information for US adults, and social media is an increasingly important component of this internet-sourced information. My research on science bloggers’ self-perceived roles suggests that blogs compliment and supplant, but do not replace, traditional science journalism sources. My research has also addressed readers’ motivations to access science blogs, e.g. for entertainment and unique information not found elsewhere on the web, and how blog use is associated with increased general scientific knowledge. My most current research is exploring how scientific organizations share science via Instagram, and how Instagram use may change viewers' perceptions of scientists.

RESEARCH / PUBLICATIONS

Science in the social media age: Profiles of science blog readers, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (2017). Paige B. Jarreau & Lance Porter. DOI: 10.1177/1077699016685558. Top Faculty Paper at AEJMC Annual Conference, ComSHER Division, 2016. PDF. Supplemental materials.

Science bloggers' self-perceived communication roles, JCOM (2015). Paige Brown Jarreau. 14(04)(2016). Abstract Link. PDF.

All the Science That Is Fit to Blog: An Analysis of Science Blogging Practices, Louisiana State University, Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Collection, 2015. Download Link.

Best Practices in Environmental Communication: A Case Study of Louisiana's Coastal Crisis. Environmental Communication, Environmental Communication (2015). Paige B. Jarreau, Z. Altinay and A. Reynolds. DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2015.1094103. [PDF]. Top paper award in the Environmental Communication Division of the International Communication Association annual conference, 2015. 

When quotes matter: impact of outside quotes in a science press release on news judgment, JCOM (2014). Paige Brown Jarreau. 13(04)(2014)A02. Abstract Link. PDF.

Expert interviews with science communicators: How perceptions of audience values influence science communication values and practices [v1; ref status: approved with reservations 2, http://f1000r.es/3na] F1000Research (2014). Paige Brown and Rosanne Scholl. 3:128. Doi: 10.12688/f1000research.4415.1

Silver Nanoscale Antisense Drug Delivery System for Photoactivated Gene Silencing, ACS Nano (2013). Paige K. Brown, Ammar T. Qureshi, Alyson N. Moll, Daniel J. Hayes and W. Todd Monroe. 7(4), 2948–2959. Link.

Evaluating the pharmacokinetics and in vivo cancer targeting capability of Au nanocages by positron emission tomography imaging, ACS Nano (2012). Y. Wang, Y. Liu, H. Luehmann, X. Xia, Paige Brown, C. Jarreau, M. Welch and Y. Xia. 6(7), 5880-5888. Link.

Gold Nanocages as Contrast Agents for Photoacoustic Imaging, Contrast Media Molecular Imaging (2011). W. Li, Paige Brown, L.V. Wang and Y. Xia.

Gold Nanocages: From Synthesis to Theranostic Applications, ACS Accounts of Chemical Research (2011 ASAP). Xia et al, Brown*. Link.

Characterization and applications of serum-free induced adhesion in jurkat suspension cells, Biotechnology Bioengineering (2010). J. Audiffred, S. De Leo, Paige Brown, H. Hale-Donze and W.T. Monroe. 106:5, 784-93. Link.

Quality matters: Press Releases in Science Communication, Conference Paper, Southern Political Science Association 2014. Online Presentation Link.

Value Framing Effects on Environmental Attitudes, Conference Paper, Midwest Association of Political Science (2012). Paige Brown. Abstract Link.

Science ‘Fact’ vs. ‘Value’ Framing Effects on Attitudes toward Global Climate Change, Conference Paper, Midwest Association of Political Science (2012). Paige Brown. Abstract Link.

A Network of Science Blogs, Read by Science Bloggers – A Data Visualization http://bit.ly/MySciBlogREAD

FUNDING / GRANTS

Oh My Science Blog! Who reads science blogs, and why? Survey research project crowd-funded through Experiment.com. PI: Paige Brown Jarreau. Project Link. 100% funded at $6,030.00.

Something is wrong on the Internet! What does the Science Blogger do? Survey research project crowd-funded through Experiment.com. PI: Paige Brown Jarreau. Project Link. 152% funded at $1,525.

Best Practices in Environmental Communication: Qualitative Interviews with Environmental Psychologists. Research Paper based on project funded by LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio 2013-14 New Projects Fund. Co-PIs: Zeynep Altinay, Paige Brown Jarreau, Amy Reynolds. Project Link. Funded at $11,250.

Validation of BioMEMS Apoptosis-detection via Microchip Impedance Measurements and Fluorescent Cell Assays, Summer 2007 HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded Poster Session at Louisiana State University.

Antisense Silver Nanoparticles for Photo-Activated Gene Silencing. Masters of Science Thesis, LSU Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Dr. Todd Monroe

EDUCATION  

PhD, Mass Communications (Aug 2011 – May 2015), Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA. Areas of Specialization: Science communication, Science blogging, New Media, Human and Science Values, Media Framing, Media Effects, Environmental Psychology

PhD Coursework, Research Assistant in Biomedical Engineering (Aug 2010 – June 2011), Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Areas of Specialization: Molecular Imaging (Optical, Photo-acoustic, PET, MRI), Nanotechnology/Nanomedicine, Materials Science, Cancer Research

Master of Science, Biological and Agricultural Engineering (Aug 2008 – May 2010), Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA – 4.0 GPA. Areas of Specialization: Nanotechnology, Drug Delivery, DNA antisense technologies, Photo-triggered Therapy, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology

Project Awards:  Particles 2010 (Orlando, Fl) Poster Presentation; ASME 2011 Summer Accepted Paper

Bachelor of Science, Biological and Agricultural Engineering (Aug 2004 - May 2008), Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA – 3.91 GPA Summa Cum Laude

  • Commencement Speaker, LSU School of Engineering Graduation 2008

  • HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute supported research summer 2007

  • Sr. Design Group Leader, Undergraduate Research Grant from LSU College of Ag.

  • Tech: ChemBioDraw, 2/3D chemical modeling

AWARDS/HONORS

Academic:

  • 2013: Coastal Sustainability Studio Small Projects Grant (Paige Brown, Zeynep Altinay, Amy Reynolds, Ashley Berthelot, Margaret Reams, Nina Lam)

  • 2009 Clayton Graduate Assistantship Award

  • 2009 NSF GRFP Honorable Mention

  • 2008 Economic Development Assistantship (EDA – 4 years)

  • 2008 Donald Clayton Undergraduate Scholarship

  • 2008 Tiger Twelve (Honors 12 LSU seniors who have shown great academic success and contributed significantly to the Baton Rouge Community)

  • 2007, 2008 Wally Pontiff Academic Excellence Award (LSU Female Scholar Athlete of the Year)

  • 2007 Summer HHMI Research Program Scholarship

  • 2007 Director’s Cup Award (LSU Scholar Athlete)

  • 2007 Carl H. Thomas Memorial Scholarship

  • 2006 Richard L. Bengtson Endowed Scholarship

  • 05-06 Outstanding Sophomore of Phi Kappa Phi

  • 2005, 2006, 2007 SEC Academic Honor Roll

Extracurricular:

  • 2008 NCAA Walter Byers Postgrad Scholarship Nominee

  • 2008 SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Postgrad Scholarship

  • 2008 Eye of the Tiger Award (Student-athlete who overcomes adversity in their life to succeed both in the classroom and in competition)

  • 2008 SEC Gold Medalist – 10m Diving

  • 2008 Diving Talent for Blue Cross Blue Shield

  • 2007-8 Wally Pontiff LSU Female Scholar Athlete of the Year

  • 2007 SEC Bronze Medalist – 10m Diving

  • 2006/07 Most Improved Diver Award

  • 2004/2005 Tiger “Stripes” Award

  • 2005-2008 4 times U.S. Diving National Championships Qualifier

  • 2004-08 Letter Winner LSU Swimming and Diving, 2005-8SEC Academic Honor Roll

  • 4 times U.S. Diving National Championships Qualifier (Platform)

Writing:

  • March 2011 Featured Blogger, Nature.com Blogs

  • Frequent Blogger Award (Saying Thanks to NN Bloggers), Nature Network

  • ResearchBlogging.org Editor’s Choice Blogger (32 posts · 6,453 views)

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Volunteer, St. Louis Science Museum NanoDays (2011)

Volunteer, Science and Engineering Day, Introducing Female Students into Engineering (2008)

CHAMPS Participation, COX Communications Academic Center for Student Athletes (2008)

Local Playground Design Community Service Project, Design of a playground for local community under mentorship of Dr. Marybeth Lima, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering (2004)

MEMBERSHIPS

Society of Professional Journalists student member, 2014

American Medical Writers Association student member, 2013

National Association of Science Writers student member, 2013

 COMPUTER & MULTIMEDIA SKILLS

Photography, photo-editing (Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop)

Video-editing (Adobe Premiere and Adobe Clip)

Audio-editing (Adobe Audition)

Experience with website configuration, design, plugins, analytics, etc.

Social media curation / analysis (Hootsuite, Storify, social media metrics, social network mapping)

Data visualization (Microsoft Excel / Pivot tables, Google Charts, Tableau, AtlasTi)

Data analysis (SPSS for quantitative analysis, SPSS TextAnalysis, AtlasTi for qualitative analysis)

Experimental and survey research design, survey design, qualitative research design, web-based data collection and advanced online survey design (Qualtrics)