Lisa McDonald

Since high school, I knew I wanted to write about science rather than do science. As such, I chose to attend a college that was strong in both science and communication disciplines. I decided to pursue physics as my science specialty because I felt if I could understand and explain quantum mechanics, I should be able to explain just about any science topic.

I ended up attending Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for my bachelor’s in physics and communication studies. During my time at Coe, I did glass research on the binary tellurium vanadate glass system under Mario Affatigato (my research just published this month, three years after my graduation). I became heavily involved with SPS my junior year after Steve Feller encouraged me to apply for an Associate Zone Councilor position.

I was the AZC for Zone 11 for two years, during which time I served at the head of the Awards Committee, to help clarify the terminology being used (e.g., award, prize); and the special committee tasked with reviewing the SPS Constitution and Bylaws, to help clarify and update the language used in these documents. In terms of Zone meetings, I helped arrange the 2016 Zone meeting at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, which I flew out to attend; and I arranged the 2017 Zone meeting at my own school, Coe College, which involved me securing a tour of Rockwell Collins and bringing Don Gurnett and James Gates to campus as plenary speakers. I also helped during the 2016 PhysCon in San Francisco, including overseeing sessions, verifying guests were where they needed to be, and introducing plenary speaker Eric Allin Cornell.

Following graduation, I secured one of the SPS-sponsored summer internship positions, as writer for the AIP science policy newsletter FYI. This position was my first choice because as a future science communicator, I wished to broadly cover and learn about how science funding and policy is decided. As FYI intern, I wrote six articles, three of which were done by myself while three were co-written.

After the FYI internship, I attended Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, for a year to get my master’s in science communication (my research from the master’s thesis is currently under review at a journal). During the master’s, I spent 10 weeks in Meyrin, Switzerland, interning for the ATLAS Experiment at CERN; my main project was creating the ATLAS Flickr page from scratch. I also remotely served on the SPS Chapter Awards Decision Committee as previous AZC representative.

Before I graduated from my master’s, I was offered a job at The American Ceramic Society as science writer, which I accepted and began in November 2018 following graduation. I have now worked at ACerS for about a year and a half, and I am now associate editor. My job responsibilities include writing the thrice-a-week newsletter, Ceramic Tech Chat, covering science research in our 11 Divisions; coordinating with researchers and editing article contributions for our nine-times-a-year magazine, the Bulletin; helping to launch a new B2B magazine, Ceramic & Glass Manufacturing; and doing all the audio scripting, editing, transcribing, and website creation for our new podcast, Ceramic Tech Chat , which launched May 13.

SPS Alumni Information

Lisa McDonald is available for student engagement in the following categories: mentoring, in-person speaker, virtual speaker. Send a request using this form .

Alum Location: Columbus, Ohio
Education Level: Masters
Disciplines: Materials
SPS Chapter: Coe College

Job Sector: Non-profit
Recent position: Associate editor and science writer, The American Ceramic Society
Job Description: As associate editor and science writer for The American Ceramic Society, my goal is to help communicate to our members and the public what research is taking place within the ceramic and glass field. Along these lines, my job responsibilities include writing the thrice-a-week newsletter, Ceramic Tech Chat, covering science research in our 11 Divisions; coordinating with researchers and editing article contributions for our nine-times-a-year magazine, the Bulletin; helping to launch a new B2B magazine, Ceramic & Glass Manufacturing; doing all the audio scripting, editing, transcribing, and website creation for our new podcast, Ceramic Tech Chat, which launched May 13; and giving webinars on various topics, for example, how to create an effective poster for presentations at science conferences and how to combat misinformation in research communication.

Alumni Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-mcdonald-6aba5bb5