Richard Harris announced as opening keynote

Richard Harris, veteran National Public Radio (NPR) science correspondent, will open the November 2022 International Annual Meeting with a talk entitled, “Conveying the Truth in a World of Doubt.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored how difficult it can be to convey important science-based information to a skeptical segment of the public. This disconnect is hardly news to scientists whose work intersects with climate change. Harris will talk about how to communicate effectively in this treacherous landscape so that scientists can help neighbors, voters, and policymakers arrive at fact-based decisions.

Harris joined NPR in 1986 and traveled the world for the network. He has reported on a broad range of stories, including science at the South Pole, nuclear meltdowns in Japan, and climate change from Iceland to Timbuktu as well as the coronavirus pandemic.

His reporting during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster revealed that the oil spill was an order of magnitude greater than officials had been reporting. He has won many honors over the years, including three journalism awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and top communications honors from the American Geophysical Union. 

His 2017 book about rigor and reproducibility in biomedicine, Rigor Mortis, was a finalist for the National Academy of Sciences Keck Communications Award.

Harris stepped away from daily journalism in 2021 and is on an extended breather. Attendees can look forward to his presentation either in Baltimore in November or via the Limited Virtual Annual Meeting registration.