Last week (November 21, 2014, to be specific), I spoke to the astronomy department at New Mexico State University about science communication. Necessarily my talk was my personal perspective: I’m definitely no expert on the topic. However, I like to think that I’ve learned a few things during my transition from Kid Who Loved Planets to Super Serious Professional Physicist to Science Writer, even if a lot of those things required doing it wrong first.

So, at the risk of never getting invited to give another talk, here’s the video of the colloquium presentation. (Due to technical difficulties, the video starts about 2 minutes into the talk, but the bulk of the presentation is here.) The talk itself is about 45 minutes long, with the remaining portion devoted to questions and comments from the audience.

Many thanks to Meredith Rawls for inviting and hosting me, and for summarizing the talk. I also want to thank the faculty and especially the graduate students for making me welcome.

If you’re interested in inviting me to speak on science communication, or on a number of scientific topics such as black holes, dark matter, or the like, please let me know. My speaking portfolio lists some of my past presentations; I’d be happy to share more information about any of those.