Week 9

This week’s seminar was Science Writing.  The speaker was Jyllian Kemsley, the Associate Editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).  She got her bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1994 and went on to Stanford University where she received her PhD in 2003.  She took a science writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and for the next four years worked as a freelance writer before joining Chemical & Engineering News.  She was an interesting speaker and easy to follow.

The seminar that was held on November 5, 2009 was really unique and interesting compared to any other seminar that we had. The seminar was an experimental online video presentation which was really successful. Even though the speaker was in San Francisco and speaking through the web camera, it did not bother me at all. The guest speaker, Jyllian Kemsley, currently works at the Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) as an associate editor and also helps with the publication of the American Chemical Society.

This edition of ChemSem brought the never before tried teleconference technology to the presentation amphitheater. Joining us from California was Jyllian Kemsley, a writer for the online and print magazine Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN). She was initially trained as a chemist, and received her Ph.D. in that field before determining that she was interested in pursuing science writing as a career.

The lecture this week was definitely an informative and interesting one. One of the things that made it interesting, certainly entertaining, was the fact that it was done via web conference. This being the first time I have ever been involved in a web conference, I kind of liked it. Another thing that made it interesting was the topic. So far in our weekly lectures the topics have only been on the technical aspects of chemistry, but this lecture was on writing about chemistry.