"Making your science matter: how to be a scientist outside as well as inside the academy"

My talk will be focused on thinking about how we can make our science relevant. I'll share some of my own experience in becoming engaged as a scientist working on several highly politicized issues (mountaintop mining, sea level rise and nanomaterials) and some lessons I have learned along the way. I hope we can have a discussion about the changing perceptions of science and the challenges of dealing honestly and carefully with scientific uncertainty at a time when public attention spans are shrinking.