Source: Robophilosophy

Northwestern University in Qatar hosts a talk about science journalism with prominent German journalist and researcher Lioba Suchenwirth on March 16, 2021.

The talk was initiated by Professor Jairo Lugo-Ocando of Northwestern University for his Science and Health and journalism class. The virtual event was initially met with technical difficulties as the guest was unable to join the Zoom meeting when the time arrived. After numerous attempts to join, the technical issue was resolved by having the guest host to the meeting herself. The meeting was attended by science and health journalism students, the professor as well as Louise Tracy R. Malinis, an administrative assistant of the university. The event took place during the Science and Health journalism allocated class time slots and the students were happy to take a break from lectures to attend the talk which was mandatory for them as it would affect their attendance scores.

Lioba Suchenwirth, who currently works for the German Aerospace Center in the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics in the public relations Department, prepared a detailed PowerPoint presentation about her work, shared part of her life story, and answered students’ questions at the end of the session. Eden Wagari, a communications junior, found this event to have been successful in piquing her interest the science communication. “I thought it was going to be boring. As a communications major, I was only taking this class as something to count towards my degree requirements but now I’m considering the possibilities of working in this field” she says.

The talk could not have come at a more opportune moment as most of the students in the science and health class are sophomores preparing for their journalism residencies in the spring semester of 2022. The residency requires students to have a basic understanding of what field they would like to work in and where. Unfortunately, Lioba had bad news for the students and informed them that the German Aerospace Center was typically reluctant in hiring interns due to the fact that a lot of the work they do is classified. She informed students that aside from this, their nationalities would also unfortunately play a role in whether they could intern for the aerospace center or not. Lioba did, however, state that though it was unlikely she would still look into the possibility of the Aerospace Center taking in interns and would get back to them.