Dr Niamh Shaw, science communicator with a passion for all things space, sits down with Trinity News to discuss her varied career journey, and perspectives she has gained.
Shaw has a tremendous life goal: to travel to space. “I think it’s very important to know where you’re headed,” Shaw remarks. Career-wise, “the ultimate gig is to report from space,” but this goal is also personal and artistic, “because it’s really about questioning the boundaries that we set ourselves in life.” Having struggled with self-belief for her first 35 years, Shaw says, “I’m celebrating [my] new-found self-belief by setting myself very lofty goals, and that’s why I want to [go to space], as a sort of life experiment, to show people this is what happens when you go out of your own way, this is how far you can go.”
As a child, Shaw loved science, recounting watching ‘HOW’, a TV show exploring how things worked. “And space,” Shaw adds, “I’ve always loved it […] – space just feels so freeing.” Growing up, this love somewhat disappeared for a time: “I’m really not sure why. […] When I was a child I think I absorbed an awful lot of what people told me [about] who I was, and so around the time of my Leaving Cert, I lost [my own identity] for a couple of years.”
“I think we know who we want to be more than we actually allow ourselves to trust.”
Thinking back to her CAO application, Shaw remembers wanting to study communications, but, following her parents’ advice, ranked engineering first. Having ultimately become a science communicator, she remarks: “I think we know who we want to be more than we actually allow ourselves to trust.” Shaw doesn’t necessarily regret studying engineering: “I feel very lucky that I got to go to college. […] I do have that [engineer] mentality […] [but] my career is definitely in communication. […] I don’t think I could have become a science communicator without some qualification in science, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the confidence. So it all worked out for the best.”
Following a master’s in Biosystems engineering, Shaw completed her PhD in food science. Despite the tough PhD system, Shaw says: “my memory of [the PhD] is being in the lab and loving what I was doing.” Upon beginning postdoctoral research, Shaw realised her skills were not in burrowing down, instead being more of a “macro” person. The postdoc was difficult: “I felt very alone, […] and I sort of fell out of love with what I was doing.” Realising academia was not for her, Shaw switched paths to pursue her passion for acting and writing: “I really wanted to look at this before I made a decision about where science sat in my life.”
“I think it’s important – and it’s difficult, particularly in STEM careers – to just stop from time to time and ask yourself, ‘Am I on the path that I really want?’”
Despite a successful acting career, Shaw found herself “desperate to get back into science”. That experience was valuable for Shaw, “because the communicator then started coming forward.” She states: “that’s what I like about science, I like being able to explain it.” Things then came together: Shaw began writing theatre shows, inserting a reawakened passion for space into her work. Her first show communicated the Higgs boson discovery, dealing with “how it relates to you every day – […] our understanding of the universe, but also these sort of theories and models are actually a really interesting way to look at your life and your life choices, and the impermanency of our existence.” Supported by Blackrock Castle Observatory as artist in residence, Shaw made two further shows combining science and “on a more fundamental level, […] how it applies to your perception of yourself.” Creating her first show allowed Shaw to explore her purpose and realise her true calling: “I was just really embarrassed […] [that I] couldn’t settle on a career, but I sat in it, […] that show was about sitting in it and kind of going, ‘why is that?’. And then, what came out of that was: because I’m not in the thing I love, which is space.” Shaw adds: “I think it’s important – and it’s difficult, particularly in STEM careers – to just stop from time to time and ask yourself, ‘Am I on the path that I really want?’. And […] you subconsciously know, but it’s about being brave enough to let that come to the fore.”
On the overlap of STEM and the arts, Shaw says “as humans, we are as much creative as we are logical”, and, despite a divide between these fields since their Renaissance unity, she thinks “it’s more natural to be fully rounded.” Shaw believes, “what is fantastic about bringing the humanities or the arts to sciences, it gives you an answer to the ‘so what?’. So just because you’re curious about something, I can’t relate to it if you can’t tell me why it’s important – and that’s the ‘so what?’.” She notes: “scientists and artists are on a path of their own curiosity, and for artists […] a lot of it is about life purpose and the purpose of our existence. That’s also the purpose of an awful lot of science – like, […] how are we here? And why are we here?” Shaw feels when scientists and artists collaborate: “that’s the culmination of two amazing practices, so everyone’s work goes up a level.”
Shaw writes regularly, contributes to television, radio, and print, presents at numerous events and conferences, and produces science communication videos. “I want to reach […] a larger audience, and all of it is rooted in ‘What are you curious about?’, because that’s the thing that I believe sets people free. Because if you don’t know what you’re curious about, you don’t know where to begin, you don’t know what it is you want to find out about the world,” Shaw says.
“Everybody I’ve ever met is curious. All that happens is that somebody can damage their confidence around their curiosity, and as a science communicator, it is our responsibility, I feel, to fix that for people, and that’s what science communication is for me.”
Shaw believes science communication is transformative: “I’ve had the privilege to see the impact. […] I’ve been in rooms with people who’ve had a very poor relationship with maths from a difficult school experience, and I’ve seen them cry when they understand algebra. And I’ve seen people, you know, suddenly realise the bigger picture about our place in the universe, […] and completely change the way they see themselves, and then going off to pursue a college course and something that they’re passionate about. So, I feel really privileged to have an opportunity to be a science communicator.” Shaw adds: “everybody I’ve ever met is curious. All that happens is that somebody can damage their confidence around their curiosity, and as a science communicator, it is our responsibility, I feel, to fix that for people, and that’s what science communication is for me.”
And Shaw’s advice for students?: “College isn’t just about the course that you’re doing. It’s about the friendships that you make. College is ultimately about room to think, and getting your assignments finished or turning up for lectures is one part of it, but actually it is time for you to really think about, ‘what am I most curious about?’ and find that.” Shaw adds: “Find your tribe, find like-minded people, and find the people who inspire you. Find […] the people that are doing really interesting things and let them influence your thought process. But it’s time to think, that’s what [college] should be for.”
More information about Dr Shaw, her science communication, and her adventures, is available here.
