Using Improv to Help Scientists Communicate

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Actor Honored for Using Improv to Help Scientists Communicate

State U. of New York at Stony Brook

Alan Alda shows medical and nursing students at Stony Brook how to use acting techniques to explain science to a general audience.

By Paul Basken

Alan Alda came to the State University of New York at Stony Brook one summer night in 2006 to help celebrate its annual film festival and to talk about Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, his just-published memoir.

The actor managed to accomplish another task that evening: raising the likelihood that scientists will be able to convey their knowledge to the many people who need to understand it....

Best known as the star of the M*A*S*H television series, Mr. Alda later was host of a science interview program on PBS for 13 years. Many of his guests, he observed, had trouble explaining their ideas to a general audience.

A solution, he thought, might be to teach scientists some basic improvisational skills. Though improv is commonly associated with comedy theater, it is, more fundamentally, the skill of listening to an audience and making corresponding adjustments in the delivery of a message.

Read the rest at Alan Alda, the Actor, Is Honored for Using Improv to Help Scientists Communicate - People - The Chronicle of Higher Education