Meet Our 2025 Level Up Keynote Speaker: Dr. Eric Brennan

We are excited to announce that Dr. Eric Brennan, research horticulturist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Salinas, California, will deliver the keynote address at the 2025 Level Up Conference.

Dr. Brennan’s presentation, “What I Learned about Ag Science Communication during my YouTube Adventures,” will highlight his unique journey in science communication and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

As a leading researcher, Dr. Brennan focuses on organic and climate-smart crop management in California’s Central Coast, with expertise in cover crops, biological pest control, weeds, soil health, and nutrient management in tillage-intensive vegetable and strawberry systems. Beyond his research, he is passionate about making science engaging and accessible to a broad audience—farmers, scientists, teachers, and the public—through creative, do-it-yourself video production. He also helps scientists and educators develop the skills to tell their own stories through video.

Join us as Dr. Brennan shares insights from his research and his YouTube adventures, inspiring us all to think differently about how we communicate science.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12

1:10 p.m. What I learned about ag science communication during my YouTube adventures

Dr. Eric Brennan is a research horticulturist focused on organic and climate-smart agriculture at the USDA Agriculture Research Service in Salinas, California. His research focuses on organic and climate-smart crop management in the Salinas Valley (Salad Bowl of America) on California's Central Coast, including cover crops, biological control of insect pests, weeds, soil health and nutrient management in tillage-intensive vegetable and strawberry systems. 

Brennan has taken the challenge of making science more accessible, engaging and useful for audiences through YouTube. With a focus on organic and climate-smart agriculture, Brennan has used DIY video production to share insights on cover crops, pest management, soil health and more with farmers, scientists, teachers and the public. He will give an interactive presentation about what he has learned from his journey as a science communicator, the power of video storytelling in agriculture, and practical takeaways to help you connect to broader audiences in authentic and impactful ways. 

2:45 p.m. Evidence-based approaches to enhance your writing feedback

Dr. Bethann Garramon Merkle is a professor of practice at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where she teaches and studies science communication and scientific writing. Her book, “Teaching and Mentoring Science Writers: An Evidence-based Approach,” will be published this fall by University of Chicago Press. 

Providing feedback on draft writing is a central and powerful approach to mentoring developing writers, but without careful design, feedback can be time-consuming and ineffective. In this talk, Merkle will introduce techniques for efficient and effective mentoring. What role (coach, gatekeeper, editor, collaborator) do you want to play as you consider a draft? How can you and your mentee agree on the stage of development a draft represents, and thus what kind of feedback it needs? How can you (and should you?) help students meet reader expectations without extinguishing their personal voices? These insights will empower attendees to rethink writing mentorship and to try new approaches to mentoring efficiently and effectively.

3:30 p.m. Making your work count: Amplifying your work through scholarly publishing

Lori Greiner and Holli Leggette have extensive experience working with researchers to make sure their work gets the attention it deserves.  

Peer-reviewed journals like the “Journal of Applied Communications” and “Journal of Extension” offer valuable opportunities for communicators to grow professionally, share impactful work and amplify science-based information. This session explores the benefits of reading, writing, reviewing and sharing journal articles to support and elevate the work that you do.

4:00 p.m. Framing communications about farming for a public audience

Dr. James Jay Farrar is director of the statewide integrated pest management program at the University of California. His presentation will describe the basics of mental frames, the dominant mental models of farming held by the U.S. public, and six general strategies for framing communications on farming.

Farrar says the minds of people in your audience are not blank slates waiting for your message to arrive. In fact, human minds are more like a cluttered swamp of opinions and ways of thinking (mental models), full of contradictions and inconsistency, along with sometimes unsubstantiated certainty. To succeed with your communications, it helps to know the dominant mental models in the minds of your audience. Then, you can more effectively navigate through the ‘cluttered swamps’ so people continue listening and don’t shut down, in the hope your message will ‘stick.’ This is strategic framing in action.  

THURSDAY, NOV. 13

1:10 p.m. Reclaiming your time with planning and purpose

Debbie Dee Howard is the former radio music director and on-air personality for Gospel 1590/106.1 FM. She produced her own morning radio show, “The Debbie Dee Morning Show,” where she informed, uplifted and empowered her listeners for nine years. In 2024, she celebrated 28 years with the historic radio station and on Sept. 24, 2024, she retired after a total of 30 years of radio. 

Howard says that by intentionally aligning your daily actions with your core values and long-term goals, you can reclaim your time. This involves prioritizing tasks that serve your purpose, eliminating non-essential commitments, and setting boundaries. Strategic planning, like time blocking and focused work, helps ensure you dedicate energy to meaningful activities rather than simply reacting to demands. The result is reduced stress, increased productivity, and a life lived with greater intention and satisfaction. 

1:40 p.m. The Streaming Science Project: Science communication in action through place-based partnerships, dialogue and discovery

Dr. Jamie Loizzo, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication at the University of Florida, founded “Streaming Science,” a project-based learning and mobile electronic field trip program for 21st-century science communication education, the MOOCocracy platform- an online, learner-centered, social democracy for engaging in global science issues. 

Learn more about the Streaming Science place-based approach to build trust in science, integrate local knowledge, and create multimedia narratives that engage both scientific and public audiences. The project combines field science, social science and community-driven science communication. Using nematodes (microscopic worms in our environment) and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Poorly Sampled and Unknown Taxa (PurSUiT) grant project as a case study, we’ll explore how university scientists, communicators, and local stakeholders—such as ranchers and Extension professionals—work together to uncover and share the hidden ecosystem biodiversity. 

2:10 p.m. Telling climate stories that matter: Journalism at the front lines of change

Paula Dobbyn, Snedden Chair of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, covered the Maui wildfire and its aftermath as a reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat, Hawaii’s leading online news outlet. Dobbyn and her colleagues were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for their breaking news coverage of the Lahaina tragedy. 

The massive fire that devastated Lahaina in 2023 was the country’s worst wildfire in more than a century, leaving 102 people dead. The tragedy might have been prevented if land managers and water regulators had required better care of dry grasslands and vegetation that surround the town. But years of water diversions to former sugar plantations and hobby farms left Lahaina parched and highly prone to wildfire. As climate change increasingly fuels drought, severe wind events and wildfires, scientists say tragedies like the one in Lahaina will become more commonplace. Not only are Americans becoming more vulnerable to being displaced or killed in wildfires, they are also more likely to suffer the negative health effects from toxic residue left behind by urban infernos.

2:40 p.m. Communicating science through StoryMaps

Rod Boyce is a science communicator at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, Alaska’s largest research institute. The core of his work is framing the complex work of physicists, geologists, space scientists, rocket scientists and other highly focused researchers into stories that nonscientists can understand. One tool that has proven effective is the ArcGIS StoryMap.

Boyce notes that it’s a multimedia world now more than ever. ArcGIS StoryMaps can bring it all together — text, video, audio, photos and easy-to-make maps — to present your science stories in a stunning, immersive and interactive way. StoryMaps are a great platform for presenting complicated science.

Even better, you don’t have to be a web designer to make them. It’s all plug and play! Learn the basics from someone who taught himself and is still exploring all that StoryMaps can offer.

3:35 p.m. Covering climate-fueled natural disasters: The stories and the science

Jessica Meszaros, a climate and environmental reporter for WUSF public radio in Tampa, Florida, and her colleagues were in the middle of 2024’s devastating hurricane season. Hurricanes Helene and Milton left widespread destruction and flooding on Florida’s Gulf Coast.Meszaros will describe how she and her co-workers plan for hurricanes, how they provide “wall-to-wall” information to listeners who may not have power and internet during the storm, and after a storm, disperse into the community for boots-on-the-ground reporting of the most-impacted areas. 

Due to storms becoming wetter, more places inland are flooding, with many residents unprepared because their neighborhood has never flooded before. Battery-powered and crank radios, as well as live reports from public radio reporters and public officials, are lifelines to storm victims. WUSF won a National Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in 2024 for large-market radio due to its work covering the community. “That was a great thumbs up that the work we did last year for our community was the best that could be done.” 

4:10 p.m. Science communication and Indigenous populations

Dr. Amanda Boyd is an associate professor of Health, Risk and Science Communication, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and at the Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH) at Washington State University. 

Boyd works with Indigenous communities throughout the United States and Canada to examine the impact of communications on risk perceptions and behavior. Through this work, she aims to develop the tools and theory needed to create effective, culturally relevant communications that improve the health and well-being of Indigenous populations.