Stories

Former Civic Science Fellow Reyhaneh Maktoufi transforms how we think about science communication

Inside the Adler Planetarium’s Space Visualization Lab, where the public can have conversations with scientists, one of the visitors began demanding answers about CIA cover-ups, UFOs, and secret alien files. The scientist, trying to keep the conversation focused, told the man, “How about we talk about this later?” and started to take other audience questions.

From the back of the room, Reyhaneh Maktoufi, then a Ph.D. student collecting data on science communication, watched as one of the planetarium’s longtime volunteer docents approached the frustrated visitor and quietly pulled out his phone. “Can I show you something?”

He showed the man photos of the office desk of Frank Drake, the renowned astrophysicist who developed the eponymous Drake equation for calculating the probability of alien life in the universe. The visitor’s eyes lit up. “Oh wow, Frank Drake! That’s so cool!” Suddenly they were two science enthusiasts nerding out together.

Once they’d connected and talked for a while, the docent gently told him, “You know, a UFO is just an unidentified flying object, right? So it could be anything—even an airplane.”

“Yeah, I get it,” the visitor said with a shrug, maybe not yet convinced but definitely listening.

“To me, that was such a beautiful moment of connection,” Maktoufi says. “It’s more about building a relationship than persuading someone about something.”

That lesson would become central to Maktoufi’s work as a Civic Science Fellow in Science Misinformation with PBS’s NOVA at WGBH in Boston, which began in 2020. A key to successfully combating misinformation was to avoid attacking it (or the people saying it), she says, and instead help scientists become better storytellers who can genuinely connect, and perhaps, gently correct.

The science of science communication

“Growing up, I wanted to become a paleontologist, and an artist, and a poet, and a doctor—all of those things,” Maktoufi says. Instead of choosing just one, she was eventually able to weave together many of those different interests into something entirely her own.

Her path wound from studying physical therapy in Iran to earning a master’s in health psychology at the University of Sussex in the UK, then back to Iran where she worked as a grief facilitator in a hospice. At age 25, she sat with dying patients and their families, learning to create space for difficult conversations.

“A big part of what I was doing was listening non-judgmentally, just getting them to talk to me, to tell me how they feel,” she says. “Not telling them, ‘you should be happy,’ or, ‘you should feel joy.’ Just, ‘yep, it’s shitty, and let’s just be in this moment together.’”

Those early experiences taught her something crucial. “The tactics I had to develop to get people to open up and have a conversation and feel heard, those ended up really helping me figure out how to treat science communication training and production the same way,” she says.

When she moved to the United States for her Ph.D. at Northwestern University, she found herself isolated and struggling. “Being in front of your computer, doing research, having no friends, being in a foreign country, it’s not so great for your mental health.” But when she began collecting data at the Adler Planetarium, everything changed. “You get to meet the researchers who talk to the public, and people coming in, and you have engaging, fun conversations. I was like, you know what? That’s just where I’m happiest.”

As a Civic Science Fellow at NOVA focused on misinformation, Maktoufi discovered a fundamental disconnect—and an opportunity to address it. Through her first project, a landscape analysis of science video content creators, she discovered that producers were interested in using findings from science communication research to improve their work, but they often didn’t know such research existed. When they did find it, they had trouble accessing the academic papers and didn’t have time to wade through the research.

Rather than create another academic report on the topic, her solution was “Sciencing Out,” a PBS NOVA YouTube series she co-produced celebrating women in science communication. Each episode wove in research-backed communication strategies—trust-building, data visualization, public engagement—through compelling stories and Maktoufi’s own illustrations.

The Fellowship also involved bringing science communication researchers into WGBH for brown-bag lunches, creating bridges between two communities that rarely talked to each other, despite working toward the same goals.

Her research became the foundation for her current National Geographic-funded project, a collaboration with the Science Communication Lab connecting science communication researchers with practitioners.

“People were like, ‘I don’t even know a science communication researcher. I didn’t even know that’s a thing,’” she says. Now she’s fixing that, one introduction at a time. “Maybe in five years, maybe in 10, one of the explorers, one of the filmmakers, one of the storytellers is like, ‘You know what? I have funding to work with a science communication expert, and I actually know someone.’”

That network‑building philosophy also animates science communication training Maktoufi has developed. The resulting workshops have evolved into something distinctly playful and creative. In one workshop on strategic communication, she has participants design media campaigns to get different fanciful audiences—aliens, time travelers, cats, zombies—to plant an imaginary “fish-faced flower” that would benefit their ecologies. “It’s so exaggerated and fun, and at the same time they’re learning how to strategize,” she says.

Four years later, the connections Maktoufi built during the Fellowship continue to help shape the field. More than any single project, it’s the people who stayed with her. “Before the skills and the jobs, it’s your cohort, the people you met, how they inspired you and changed how you think,” Maktoufi says. She still brainstorms with other Fellows and is inspired by them; her latest talk at National Geographic was based on the photographic work of Anand Varma, another Fellow from her cohort.

Looking forward

The Civic Science Fellowship opened “a world of possibilities” beyond traditional career paths, Maktoufi says. “You kind of can shape what the job is.” She also found an unusually ego‑free network of funders, producers, journalists, and researchers she now counts as friends, a benefit she hadn’t anticipated.

Every step she’s taken since builds from the last. During a recent HHMI fellowship at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, she trained hundreds of people in evidence-based strategies for science communication. And now, “I have proofs of concept; I have data,” she says. “These strategies are not new, but are the continuation of years of me working on these, building off of things.”

Since leaving HHMI, Maktoufi has been co-hosting the “SciComm Hotline” podcast with Stephanie Castillo about making research accessible (“Science communication gossip and drama,” Maktoufi jokes). And she was a delegate to the recent U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, which she calls “one of the best things that has ever happened to me.” In Japan she discovered new angles on building unlikely connections. “You get to go out, go to karaoke, have dinner, and then go on a very serious panel on tariffs, and then come back and connect,” she says.

To those looking to improve their science communication skills, she suggests starting with stories. “Take a storytelling class or workshop, and then try it in real life. Have a list of different personal stories that come to mind. And every once in a while, see if you can put things in the frame of a story.”

The next step is to work on being a better listener. “If you’re in a conversation and someone is about to finish something, and you can’t wait for them to finish to say the next thing, count to three, and then say the next thing,” she says. “Or just nod and have your next thing be a question.”

These aren’t just communication techniques; they’re fundamentally about building human connection. “Just using jargon isn’t going to lose someone’s trust,” she says. “But if you’re not listening to them, if you’re not giving your backstory, your personal story—these are the things that are actually really consequential.”

Reyhaneh is a member of the 2020-21 Civic Science Fellows cohort. Her Fellowship was supported by the Rita Allen Foundation.