In a recent issue of Chemical and Engineering News, this very enjoyable profile of Dr. Kate Biberdorf, popularly known as Kate the Chemist (article by Dalmeet Singh Chawla):
...That hustle has paid off for Biberdorf. After 16 years studying and working in Texas, she recently moved to the University of Notre Dame to become the institution’s first-ever professor for the public understanding of science.
The role will be significantly different from what Biberdorf did at UT Austin, where her whole job was to teach chemistry. Alongside that day job, every week she would visit up to four schools, engaging with more than 20,000 students a year. “My best year was 29,000 students, and that was a really good year, but I was very tired,” she says. “When I’m breathing fire, and I often do it in Louboutin heels, people just take notice.”
It sounds like it's reasonably lucrative for her:
...In 2020, she handed over the unpaid school outreach work to someone else at the university. Now Biberdorf has two literary agents, a social media agent, a podcast agent, and a sponsor agent. She is a client of the United Talent Agency, which represents artists, athletes, entertainers, and more. Twenty percent of all the fees she earns for any show usually go to the agency, and 10% to Schwartz, who is still her manager.
Biberdorf declines to share any monetary figures, citing confidentiality agreements, but says her Kate the Chemist gig makes “so much more money” than her professor role at UT Austin did. “It’s an extreme amount of money you can make with these sponsorships.”
It also sounds like she will be doing a fair bit of work for the University of Notre Dame, her new employer:
...She has officially moved to Notre Dame, where she says her role will be a more natural fit with her science entertainer work. It will be business as usual under the Kate the Chemist brand. But with more freedom from her institution and no chemistry classes to teach, she says she can focus on her science communication work and ultimately bring more attention to the scientific research taking place at Notre Dame. “It’s a win-win,” she says.
“They’re building me an entire studio,” she says. It’s a camera-friendly laboratory, a makerspace, and it’s going to be open on Feb. 1, Biberdorf notes. “Notre Dame is invested in this.”
In her new position, Biberdorf hopes to launch the university’s first major in science communication, with the aim of creating an “army of science communicators.” For now, she will start off with a science communication minor.
I have long been skeptical of the labor economics of science communication, especially as a stand-alone career. I've thought about this for years, especially since I know that so many people would like to do 'science communication'* as a job, and I have watched what seems like hundreds (but is probably more like 10 or 20 professional freelance science communicators) struggle over the years as I've watched on the sidelines on social media since 2010 or so.
I can't help but note that my skepticism has long been rooted in Derek Lowe's skepticism about his prospects as a professional science communicator. I can't find the quote but (like so many quotes from Derek), it's eminently memorable - if living solely on the checks from his writing, he and his family would soon be reduced to eating the grass in his backyard. Derek's a much, much better writer than I, so what chance do I have, or anyone else for that matter? I have a family to support, so I'm not a writer, I work for a living in chemical manufacturing.**
But this isn't really about me and my inadequacies - it's actually about the core of this blog's mission over the years, which is to attempt to quantify the quality of job markets. The latest Occupational Outlook Handbook (updated in August 2024) indicates that there are something like 87,000 chemists, and their median pay is ~$85,000 a year. While we can debate whether this is a good salary or a bad one, I think you can argue that you can live on your own (probably not very well, depending on where you live) and with luck, finding an appropriate spouse or a partner with a similar annual salary would be a great way to extend your dollar and increase your standard of living to something approaching the great American dream of affluence.
I'm not so sure about professional science communicators of any sort. As I've said before, professional science communication (especially the kind that makes money) seems to be mostly part of the entertainment industry, and entertainment seems to be a labor tournament market, where there are many entrants, but one true winner (and just a few people who make a median income competing.) Kate is winning that tournament (and seems to have won another one, in her (I presume) tenured position at Notre Dame.) That is great for her, but this is not a reproducible path. I genuinely do not understand what a long-term, high-quality employment market for science communicators looks like. I posit that I've never seen one, and more's the pity.
*What the hell is 'science communication' anyway? I know it when I see it, as do you.
**I note that I am STILL very proud to be a member of NAICS 325.
***One more CJ-esque note: I cannot help but note Dr. Biberdorf is moving from a classically large public university to a private university. This too is the correct move in Our Modern Times.
