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Interview with Dr Milo Shaffer

Lecturer in nanomaterials chemistry at Imperial College, London and visiting lecturer on Cranfield’s MSc in nanotechnology programme (full biog)




How did you first come into contact with the media? Did you have any experience when you were a PhD student?

MS: I don’t think so, it all started later on really.

So how did that happen?

MS: I think I was contacted out of the blue more-or-less. Obviously working in nanotechnology, it is rather a hot topic at the moment. People cast around for the nearest convenient person who will answer questions that relate to something they are trying to write an article about, so different people approached me for comment about different things. Most of it was perhaps of a technical nature, to comment on some paper that had come out or some new discovery that had been reported so they want comment on the applications or the practicalities or just something to fill in the space in their article.



So was that before or after you were listed as one of the experts on the Imperial website?

MS: I think it was before, because I think I did a few when I was at Cambridge, I’m not quite sure how they got hold of me.

After you were listed, did your number of media hits increase?

MS: I don’t get very many, maybe one every month or two, something like that. Or maybe even less. I don’t think it has made a lot of difference. One thing I didn’t say was that you could ring me up before 8 in the morning so I don’t get the breaking news type things. Perhaps I should, perhaps it would be interesting. So it is more people preparing feature articles and things like that.

So have you ever been directly quoted in an article?

MS: Yes, several times although I can’t remember the specific quotes now. There was one about self-cleaning clothes. Somebody invented titanium-filled polymer filaments which has a self cleaning photo catalytic process so it removes dirt from itself, and so there was the old man in the white suit type story, which makes a nice story. And of course there is a similar sort of argument which says that if it eats dirt it may also eat the suit itself. So they just wanted some comment to go with that about whether it was practical to have this cleaning process. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was probably something along the lines of “yes, photocalysis on titanium does work”.



So you’re asked to speculate a lot with nanotech aren’t you?

MS: Yes, or at least what usually happens is that people ring up and speculate wildly and then I have to be rather sensible and down to earth. I had one recently where somebody rang me and said “Ha! Well I’ve just read this paper and I conclude that I can make a suspension bridge that is entirely transparent and see-through, and can you comment about this”, and I replied, “Well, how did you get to that idea?” and eventually it came to pointing out that essentially he was trying to make something that was inherently black, so it wasn’t going to work. Then he was a bit depressed. I guess that’s quite a common thing when some of the stories are done; to be a bit more down to earth about the realities of whatever the topic is in hand.

The trouble is that it doesn’t always go down terribly well, or at least it’s not what the other person wants to hear because they would like to make a more exciting story. So it makes a less exciting story. I mean the response I’ve had mostly, because I’ve spoken to science writers, has been oh well fair enough, “It’s a fair cop, gov”. I don’t know if there are other types of situations where you get them quoting something random and saying that you are responsible. That might happen I suppose but I’ve never had that.



So do you mind people asking you to speculate like that or do you get a bit exasperated with people phoning you?

MS: No, it’s usually quite entertaining. What crazy idea have they come up with this time? And sometimes you go “Ohh, well actually, maybe we should do that, that’s an interesting idea.” I mean it’s quite fun speculating, thinking on your feet. Again you want to be fairly confident that you’re talking to someone who is sympathetic, because if you are just thinking on your feet it is easy to say something which is actually ridiculous really, so you want to be able to have a chance to review what your conclusions of that discussion are. I guess you tend to feel freer to do that with someone you have spoken to before, and so you know that they are trustworthy. You know that when they say “oh we’ll send you the quote before we publish it”, that they do indeed send you the quote.

I have quite often had people send me stuff before they put it out, and let me have a go at editing, which I know is not the normal format. Whether I just sound approachable, or convince them that I won’t insert enormous amounts of gobble-de-gook into their work, I’m not sure, but I usually get away with that. And when I do that, I am extremely careful not to change the length of the sentences that they have included or add any technical words. But what you find quite often is that what they have written is actually incorrect and by the smallest of tweaks you can make it correct.



Just thinking about young scientists who haven’t had that much exposure to the media, what advice would you give to them if they are asked to speculate?

MS: Well don’t if you’re not comfortable with it. Don’t say something which you might later regret. As I say, be careful of who it is you are speculating with and if you are not comfortable just stick to what you had decided you were going to talk about in advance. So go back to the things you are confident about and say “Well, I don’t know whether that would be practical, however this is an interesting thing you can do” and then talk about what you want to talk about.

What do you wish you had had known?

MS: I don’t know. I don’t feel like I have had any terrible experiences. It is hard to remember what you thought beforehand. As you go through it you get a better idea of what it is they are interested in and how the mechanics of it happen. I haven’t had very many really complicated situations so I can imagine that might have been slightly different if that had come up. I think that the main thing to bear in mind is just to know what you want to say in advance. If there is something you want to say, if they give you something to comment on you could get the research in advance and give yourself a moment to reflect on it and decide what is your view on it rather than doing it on the hop. You can also look a few things up as well if you need to.


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    Last updated: October 05 2006
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