RCTP Team: The Graduate School - Northwestern University

RCTP Team

Team Members

Kiki Zissimopoulos

RCTP Instructional Coordinator, Associate Professor of Instruction, McCormick School of Engineering

Kiki Zissimopoulos is the instructional coordinator for the Research Communication Training Program (RCTP). She is an Associate Professor of Instruction and First-Year Adviser in Undergraduate Engineering. She co-teaches Design Thinking and Communication and Designing your Life and advises about 100 first-year students. Kiki became especially interested in science communication after participating in the inaugural offering of RCTP (then called RSG) as a biomedical engineering graduate student. Her post-graduate work as an internal consultant and education researcher helped her see how insights about how people learn overlap with insights about effective science communication. Prior to returning to Northwestern, she was the co-founder of a science communication course sequence for undergraduates at the University of Chicago. With faculty support, she successfully advocated for these courses to count toward the major requirements in biology, providing formal recognition of the importance of science communication skills as part of an undergraduate degree. Kiki is also an invited speaker for various science communication workshops in the Chicago area. She is excited to carry forward the efforts of Michelle Paulsen and Alex Adler, RCTP’s founders.

Apoorva Shivaram

Graduate Assistant, RCTP

Apoorva Shivaram is the Graduate Assistant for the Research Communication Training Program. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Northwestern and her research examines questions related to the earliest cognitive abilities of humans, what we learn over the first few years of life, and how we can make children better learners. Ever since Apoorva completed the RCTP program in Summer 2019 (then called RSG), she has become extremely passionate about science communication and has realized the importance of being able to share research findings in an easily understandable manner. She has taken several courses in science communication and has given several successful talks both within and outside her department. She has been the Graduate Assistant for RCTP since Spring 2020 and has enjoyed working with a diverse group of graduate students as they worked together to develop complex ideas and transform them into talks that are easy to understand while retaining the true essence of the research. She can't wait to work with the incoming class of graduate students in RCTP and learn about their exciting research!

Callie Kalny

Graduate Assistant, RCTP

Callie Kalny is a graduate assistant for the Research Communication Training Program (RCTP) at Northwestern University. She is currently a PhD student in the School of Communication where she works with Dr. Nathan Walter in the Center of Media Psychology and Social Influence (COM-PSI). Her research explores the socio-psychological effects of communication and the relationship between message design, affective response, information processing, and persuasive outcomes in contexts of health and the environment. She is particularly interested in the development of communication interventions that guide decision-making and promote the uptake of preventive and pro-social behaviors. She is a graduate of the RCTP ('21) and is passionate about using narrative storytelling as a tool to make scientific knowledge more accessible and more personable to wide, diverse audiences. She has taught public speaking at Northwestern and thoroughly enjoys working with and mentoring students from a variety of academic disciplines. Callie is a graduate of Mercer University (BA, Communication Studies) and Wake Forest University (MA, Communication).

Max Wisne

Graduate Assistant, RCTP

A recent graduate of RCTP, Max has since joined the RCTP Team as a Graduate Assistant in 2023. Pursuing his PhD in Physics under Prof. Venkat Chandrasekhar, his research explores the experimental world of condensed-matter physics. Heavily influenced by the quantum information age, Max’s work highlights the strange quantum phenomena that permeates our everyday.

Max is the newly elected treasurer of the Physics and Astronomy Graduate Student Council (PAGSC) and an active member of the physics community at Northwestern. Since completing RCTP in the summer of 2022, he has given talks both formal and informal to faculty advisors, graduate student peers, incoming students, interested friends and supportive grandmothers.

After his PhD, Max hopes to continue promoting scientific literacy for all ages and backgrounds on the political stage where he believes he can make the greatest impact for the most people. Curious and enthusiastic, Max eagerly awaits the opportunity to pass on what he learned at RCTP to the class of 2024!

Mandy Withall

Graduate Assistant, RCTP

Mandy Withall is a graduate assistant for the Research Communication Training Program. They are currently a PhD student in Cognitive Psychology, working with David Rapp in the Reading Comprehension lab. Their research generally focuses on metacognitive processes that can help or hinder how people take up false information into memory. Mandy completed the RCTP program in the summer of 2022, where they discovered a passion for science communication. Since then, they have taken numerous science communication courses across Northwestern and is working on completing the Medill Media and Science Communication certificate. She has experience presenting both in-person and virtual talks and poster presentations. They are excited to help the new classes of RCTP to develop lasting communication skills through constructive feedback and encouragement.

Byron Stewart

Adjunct Lecturer, McCormick School of Engineering

Byron Stewart is an adjunct lecturer at Medill and the McCormick School of Engineering. Stewart has facilitated applied theater/improv communication workshops and individual coaching sessions for corporations as well as for graduate students and faculty at various research institutions including Northwestern. Stewart co-teaches two courses titled: Engineering Improv I & II targeted to Northwestern’s undergraduate engineering students. He is a science communication instructor for Northwestern’s Graduate School’s Research Communication Training Program. He has taught Improv for English Communication for Northwestern’s international students. He also teaches Public Speaking103 for Northwestern’s Prison Education Program for incarcerated students at Statesville prison. Stewart is an alumnus of Howard University.

Beth Bennett

Assistant Professor, Medill School of Journalism

Beth Bennett is an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her teaching is focused on television news writing, video producing and on-camera reporting. Bennett works with both undergraduate and graduate students and has taught all the major video courses in Medill’s curriculum. In addition, Bennett founded Sticks and Stones Media, which specializes in presence coaching, media training and short-form video production.

In 2009 Bennett produced her first documentary Under the Ice, which showed at the Chicago United and St. Louis International Film Festivals. It aired on WTTW (PBS) and Wisconsin Public Television licensed it. In 2011 Bennett produced Kindred, which also aired on WTTW and won a Midwest Emmy. Her 2012 short film Spinscreened at the Toronto Film Festival and made it to the semi-finals for the International Documentary Race.

Prior to joining Northwestern’s full-time faculty in 2006, Bennett worked on-air for TV stations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Traverse City. Bennett has covered major disasters, politics, crime, education and entertainment. Most recently, she worked as a freelance reporter/anchor for Tribune-owned CLTV. Her reports were also broadcast on WGN-AM. Bennett has worked as a freelance producer for the following shows: FOX News Chicago, CBS Early Show, Metromix the TV Show and the NBC reality series Starting Over.

Bennett has an MSJ from Medill and an A.B. in English and art history from Kenyon College.

Dr. Barbara Shwom

Professor of Instruction, The Cook Family Writing Program; Director, The Writing Place

Barbara Shwom holds joint appointments in the Kellogg School of Management, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. For more than 30 years at Northwestern, she has designed and taught a wide variety of communication courses, including Writing in Organizations (Kellogg), Communicating Complex Data (McCormick), and How to Become an Expert in Roughly 10 Weeks (Weinberg). She also serves as a communication coach for graduate and undergraduate project teams in McCormick’s Segal Design Institute, where she helps students prepare design presentations for both corporate and entrepreneurial clients.

Professor Shwom’s teaching at Northwestern has been recognized by both an outstanding teacher award and an appointment as a fellow of Northwestern’s Searle Center for Teaching Excellence. In addition to her work at Northwestern, Barbara is also the managing principal of Communication Partners, a consulting practice that specializes in helping clients communicate complex information to external and internal audiences. Communication Partners’ client list includes organizations from a range of industries, including biotechnology, high tech research and development, pharmaceuticals, management consulting, market research, financial services, engineering, and consumer products.

Barbara is co-author of Graphics and Visual Communication for Managers and Business Communication: Polishing Your Professional Presence. She is active in a number of professional associations and has served as president for both the Association for Business Communication and the Association of Professional Communication Consultants.

Kelley Collins

Business Development Specialist, Kelley Collins Consulting

Collaboration and resourcefulness have underscored a 20 year career in management and business development. Her Masters in Business Management and Organizational Behavior has added to her expertise in understanding the intricacies of organizational structures and processes to bring success and clarity to situations. Kelley is driven to focus on innovation in the technology arena while staying connected with the economics of a given entity.

While with Duracell’s New Product and Technology Group (worldwide leaders in consumer battery technology), Kelley worked closely with executive and engineering teams within companies such as HP/Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Kodak and Apple. She demonstrated ways to communicate and to interpret complex engineering concepts and business plans to bridge a broad spectrum of individuals from product development to sales.

Her work has brought her face-to-face with the critical need to innovate in the areas of science and technology to maintain the nation’s leadership position for tomorrow. She strongly feels that identifying, enticing, and training creative minds can be cultivated with STEM curriculum throughout our educational system, elementary to higher education. Kelley’s combination of a science and business background provides a solid foundation for guiding individuals to create communication methods that intrigue and inform diverse audiences.

Nick DiMaso

Filmmaker, Actor

Nick DiMaso is a graduate of Northwestern University (’15) with degrees in Psychology and Radio/TV/Film, as well as a Certificate in Creative Writing for the Media. Currently working in Chicago as a filmmaker/editor/actor, Nick has worked on short films, comedy networks, national and regional commercials, and nonprofit marketing materials. When not making movies, Nick serves as the Corporate and Foundation Relations Manager at the nonprofit Horizons for Youth, and he sits on boards with Camp Kesem and the Obama Foundation. Nick performs improv at iO Chicago and CIC Theater.

Shane Larson

Research Associate Professor of Physics; Associate Director, CIERA

Shane Larson is a Research Associate Professor of Physics and the Associate Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern. Shane is also an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. His research interests are primarily in gravitational wave astrophysics and data analysis.

Shane is passionate about communicating science to a broader audience. He has taught science communication workshops, including a “Writing for Scientists” course (CIERA) that focuses on teaching students writing for CVs, proposals, and academic journals, as well as for the press and for science blogs.

Shane maintains his own project WriteScience to communicate scientific ideas.

Will Sonheim

Writer/Filmmaker

Will Sonheim is a writer/filmmaker with a Bachelor’s in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University and a Master’s in Screenwriting from The London Film School.

Founders

Michelle Paulsen

Founder and Former Program Director

Michelle is the founder of Northwestern’s Research Communication Training Program and was a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant. She is currently the Deputy Director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program. Michelle has over ten years of experience in higher education administration at Northwestern University, where she has also served as an adjunct faculty member in both the School of Education and Social Policy and the School of Communication. She has a background in Chemistry Education and Environmental Engineering and holds certification and an advanced degree in Educational Leadership. Michelle is a co-author of The Power of Partnerships and was featured Scientist of the Month for February 2013 by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). She has been an invited presenter at NSF, AAAS, and ACS national meetings and has served as an education consultant on the development of science communication programs at universities around the country.

Alex Adler

Co-Founder

Alex Adler holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern’s Materials Science and Engineering program. Alex’s passion for communicating science started at a young age and continues now through RSG. As a performer in SPG Improv, a graduate student improv group, Alex honed the stage skills that would aid him in science enrichment programs like the Chute and Northwestern Science Education (CHANSE) after school science program. At Northwestern, his work with the Science and Engineering Research Teaching Synthesis (SERTS) program brought hands-on demos to non-science major undergraduates and promoted the importance of scientific research at universities at national labs. He has been invited to present about the RSG program at the first annual International Teacher and Scientist Partnership (ITSP) conference in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.With RSG, Alex has had the unique opportunity to work with great instructors and a fantastic student body with one common goal: tell the exciting story of science.