Senior Knowledge Broker
After spending a year in a joint role as a Knowledge Broker for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, I transitioned into a full-time role as Senior Knowledge Broker for the Hub.
The Hub is a unique team with a unique mission: we bridge the gap between climate scientists and the media in order to help Australians understand and tackle climate change.
On the one hand, we do sociologial research encompassing audience views, media framing and climate impacts. On the other, we run national climate communication programs that get Australians thinking about local and regional climate trends. We publish weekly columns in Quest Community News, as well as working with weather presenters across the country.
My role as a Knowledge Broker has a few aspects. The first is to be the Hub’s link to climate scientists. As a former climate change researcher, I maintain active links with Australia’s preeminent climate science organisations, and I regularly work with other organisations that disseminate and translate climate science, like the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub, to ensure that I’m aware of the latest research and cutting edge datasets.
The second aspect is to help other Hub’s staff members access, understand and translate climate research. That might mean connecting colleagues or journalists with researchers, ensuring that our products meet scientific standards, or working with our communication specialists to ensure that messages are both accurate and understandable.
The final aspect of my role is to develop the tools and systems that underpin our data visualisation efforts. We produce dozens—if not hundreds—of climate change graphics for our media partners each week, and the systems I build help ensure that our graphics meet the best practices of data viusalisations, are consistent with brand guidelines and are an efficient use of our time and effort.
As our team grows, I’m working with our research officers to coordinate the Hub’s science and development efforts at a national scale.
Although I’m no longer working for CLEX, I spent most of my time rebuilding climdex.org, a website that offers users maps, plots and data about global climate extremes.