Maria Taylor is a part-time associate lecturer in the third year undergraduate Science Journalism (3002) course.

Maria has extensive professional experience as a print journalist and editor and has won awards as a documentary film-maker, specialising in recent years on environmental, agricultural and resource management issues. She has worked for newspapers in the United States and Australia, and has also worked in the Australian federal government sector, both in-house as a communicator and as a consultant writer/journalist, editor and publisher.

For 10 years prior to joining CPAS as a PhD candidate, she published a newspaper on behalf of the grains industry, working with a national network of writers to transfer science and technology research findings to a lay audience. During those years she also produced and directed a series of natural resource videos for environmental education.

Maria now publishes and edits a local monthly news magazine in semi-rural NSW north of the the ACT. The focus is sustainable lifestyles at the local level, cultural events and local government issues.

Recent conferences attended

Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Conference June 2008, Malmo, Sweden.
Developed and presented session on 'Framing of Controversial Science'.

International Conference of Science Journalists February 2007, Melbourne, Australia.
Maria was a workshop panellist on 'Communication Of Climate Change.

(CSIRO) Greenhouse 2007, International Conference October 2007, Sydney, Australia.
Maria was a plenary session panellist on 'Perspectives In Communicating Climate Change', and also presented a poster, for which she won a prize.

Publications

During 2007, Maria had about 20 Science/Technology, Science Policy And Consumer Action articles published in 'The Bungendore Bulletin' and two articles on Science Policy published in 'The Canberra Times' and one on crikey.com.  She now edits a monthly newspaper with a partial focus on science communication outreach and training for science communicators.

Activities

Maria was a committee member in 2007-2008 of the ACT Chapter of the Australian Science Communicators.