Coordinator's Corner: PWR’s Notation in Science Communication Rises to the Occasion of an Uncertain Moment

Serving as Coordinator of PWR’s Notation in Science Communication (NSC) in 2025 has often felt like an exercise in navigating contradiction. It will be pointing out the obvious to say that science feels more under threat, in 2025, than ever before in my lifetime. From dramatic federal austerity programs at agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, which have so undermined funding streams for academic research on campuses across the US, to misguided and often malicious attacks on vaccine science and public health institutions, to a broader crisis precipitated by the infiltration of new and often very dubious “AI” technologies making claims to epistemological authority: throughout 2025, the exigences shaping the work of science communication have shifted vertiginously. It’s been heartbreaking to watch opportunities for advanced study and research be snatched away from our ambitious NSC students and graduates. And it has felt like walking through a rhetorical minefield knowing how to advise them, with the very language we use to describe research projects and even basic scientific facts facing scrutiny by insidious government censorship programs.

Let me simultaneously reassure you that our NSC students, as well as our colleagues in PWR and across campus who teach and advise in the Notation, are abundantly here to meet the challenges of this moment. And we’re here in significant numbers: I don’t believe the irony was lost on any of us who support the NSC that 2025’s freshly hostile climate towards science emerged just as we were scaling up support for our largest cohort ever of graduating seniors (33 in the class!), as they crafted and polished their final ePortfolio projects (see a selection of those portfolios at our archive). If anyone expected our NSC students to be demoralized amid such a moment, as any of our PWR colleagues who visited the Portfolio course last winter witnessed, the workshop was as full of life as ever. Despite all the material and rhetorical challenges we’re facing, Notation courses and events, and indeed the broader community, feel suffused with a resilient energy, and an eagerness to find innovative solutions to continue the work of pursuing and communicating scientific knowledge amid challenging times. Our NSC students are as committed to the work of communicating science as ever, and in finding strategies to hold and build the public’s trust. 

More students want to be a part of this work than ever. We’ve just completed our fall admissions cycle, where the NSC continues to receive a robust application pool from students in diverse majors, from Human Biology, to Earth Systems, to Astronomy, to Bioengineering, to Data Science. In fall, we admitted 15 new students, who will join another 18 new students we admitted in our spring cycle. At present, there are 99 students active in the NSC community, and 22-24 seniors are on track to complete the notation this Spring. Perhaps the most exciting takeaway from our recent student data is that the NSC is not only admitting but retaining students through graduation at a higher rate—currently about 60-70%—which speaks both to student interest in science communication as well as to the maturity of the program.

These positive trends for the NSC clearly reflect the hard work and brilliance of the PWR Lecturers who have contributed to building the Notation, including previous coordinators Dr. Jenne Stonaker, Dr. Meg Formato, and Dr. Emily Polk, all of whom continue to teach and advise in the NSC (and are endlessly generous in supporting the present coordinator with their wisdom and experience!). It’s also the result of our exceptional course offerings, which in recent years have included new curricular innovations—such as Dr. Hayden Kantor’s Farmer, Scientist, Activist, Chef: Communicating for Food Security and Food Justice (Spring 2024), Dr. Becky Richardson’s Patient-Centered Stories, Research, and Advocacy (Winter 2024), and Dr. Kath Rothschild’s Science Storytelling for Kids ( Spring 2025)—as well as re-energized classics like Dr. Stonaker’s The Stanford Science Podcast (Fall 2025), and Dr. Cassie Wright’s Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Persuasive Data Stories (Winter 2026). Our students are also fortunate to have the expertise of the cadre of PWR Lecturers who regularly teach the required Intro course (PWR 91NSC), including the previous coordinators listed above, Dr. Shay Brawn, Dr. Sarah Pittock as well as Dr. Rothschild, whom we were lucky to have join the Intro rotation in Fall 2025.

NSC coursework also provides important campus infrastructure beyond the Notation itself. Did you know that NSC ePortfolios can count as required capstone projects for graduating seniors in several majors, including Human Biology, Biology, and, as of spring 2025, Earth Systems? In AY 2024-25, the NSC also became an official partner with the new Science Writing Advancing Global and Planetary Health (SWAP) program, housed in Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health. The year-long course, which NSC students can use to fulfill their non-PWR elective, pairs students with research faculty to create communication resources for projects related to global and planetary health. 

As everyone who supports the NSC knows, the program is also more than just coursework. It’s an intellectual community, and an important way PWR showcases our rhetorical expertise to the broader Stanford campus and beyond. We host and co-host vibrant events: in recent years, NSC students have been fortunate to engage with luminaries such as  AIDS researcher and public health expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, environmental writer Dr. Lauren Oakes (with the Doerr School) and writer and physicist Alan Lightman (with the Stanford Storytelling Project). NSC-affiliated PWR Lecturers also give talks and workshops on science communication across campus, for instance in the Bioengineering Department and the School of Medicine. The NSC frequently collaborates with our sister program the Notation in Cultural Rhetorics (NCR) and its coordinator, Dr. Harriett Jernigan, to co-host events that benefit all Notation students. In Winter 2025, an NCR-NSC collaboration put on an emergency “Download-a-thon” to help students in both Notations learn how to document digital content from government and other official websites that might be at risk of dismantlement. The NSC and NCR  also co-hosted medical humanities researcher Dr. Lisa Mendelman, who led a discussion on her research and experience pursuing NIH funding in the current climate (“Writing a History of US Mental Health Diagnoses: With or Without the NIH”).

All of this is by way of saying the NSC is thriving as an energetic, essential part of PWR even during these challenging times, and I hope you know that you’re invited to be a bigger part of it! I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas for hosting or co-hosting science communication events—speakers, workshops, exhibits—or if you have ideas for new NSC courses.