Hilary Glasman-Deal
Hilary teaches academic STEMM communication at the Centre for Academic English, Imperial College London. Her primary focus is on research writing for doctoral students, postdocs and academic staff. She consults on scientific research publication at all levels, working with both native- and non-native speaker researchers to communicate complex content effectively across a range of fast-changing communication platforms. She has been at Imperial since 1993 and is currently also working with academic staff at Imperial on preparing for the UK’s 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
Hilary is the author of Science Research Writing (Imperial College Press, 2009; Google Scholar citation count 143), which sold over a thousand copies in the first two months. The book has now sold over 35,000 copies and has been translated into Korean, Japanese and Chinese. It is used as a course book at more than 30 universities around the world and has been updated and rewritten for a second edition to be published in August 2020. Please find a link to the title : https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0232.
Keynote presentation
Circles within circles: communicating from the inner circle to the real world
Our role is changing. We’re no longer just teaching English for Academic Purposes; we’re teaching academic communication, and we are becoming central to the success of that communication both within and from our institutions. The global tolerance for language errors is shifting our writing focus from grammar mechanics towards the production of a robust narrative that anchors meaning and can compensate for language issues. We are building expertise in academic, professional, and research communication, and we can incorporate this expertise into our pedagogy and practice to benefit ourselves, the writers we work with, and our institutions.
Prof. Helen Sword
Helen Sword is a poet, scholar, and international expert on academic writing across the disciplines. She is a Professor of Humanities at the University of Auckland and has been honoured with a number of research and teaching awards. Her books, articles and online tools have empowered writers around the world to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically and with greater pleasure, and her evidence-based masterclasses have taken her to more than 90 universities, research institutes, and other organizations in 20 countries and on every continent except Antarctica. See her website (www.helensword.com) for links to writing-related resources including retreats, masterclasses, videos, webtools, articles and a curated bookshop.
Keynote presentation
Gathering to Write
What are the cognitive, creative, and social benefits of gathering to write in the company of other writers? What is lost and what is gained when we “gather” online rather than face-to-face? How can we design writing-related gatherings that effectively “blur the lines” between academic, professional, and personal writing, rather than reinforcing those boundaries? In this presentation I will discuss some core principles for organizing a successful gathering-to-write event, drawing on the research literature on online and offline gatherings as well as my own recent experiences of facilitating an international “virtual writing café” on Zoom.
Prof. Noam Lemelshtrich Latar
Noam Lemelshtrich Latar is the Founding Dean of the School of Communications at IDC Herzliya (Israel’s first private university), which has been the site of pioneering experiments in employing cutting-edge communications technologies to synergize art, virtual reality, and conflict resolution.
He served as the Chairperson of the Israeli Communications Association (ISCA) from 2009 to 2012.
He received a Ph.D. in Communications from MIT in 1974, M.Sc. from Stanford University in engineering systems in 1971, and a BSc in Mechanical engineering from California State University Northridge (Summa cum Laude).
He was among the founders of the Community Dialogue Project at MIT, experimenting with interactive communications involving communities through electronic means. NLL pioneered the papers on touch-screen feedback for interactive TV, on new media and cybernetic decision making, on digital identities (Social DNA), and on Artificial Intelligence robotics in journalism.
Lemelshtrich Latar initiated the teaching and research of new media at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University, and was involved in the Israeli high-tech industry, establishing several communications startups in cognitive enhancement that employ computer algorithms and data mining for the creation of digital consumer profiles.
Lemelshtrich Latar is the Chair of the Daniel Pearl International Journalism Institute.
His current research interests are the effects of artificial intelligence on media and journalism and the potential of art to create dialogue across cultures.
Keynote presentation
Will a robot ever receive the Nobel Prize for Literature?
We are living in an era where there is a growing trend among many media companies to employ robots to replace human journalists and story tellers to not only investigate big data but also to automatically write the narratives without human involvement.
The lecture will explore the question can a robot be as creative as a human being? Quality writing requires a high level of creativity. Can a robot ever receive the Nobel Prize for Literature ?
One school of global researchers including Nobel laureates believe that the artificial brain, in the near future, will be able to do whatever the human brain does, but as some point, do it better. Other school of thoughts claims that in the current AI and computer hardware this will not be possible in the foreseeable future.
In my talk, the limitations of AI will be discussed and the two schools of thoughts will be described. The challenge for future human writers will be to compete with the changing nature of storytelling which includes immersion and interactivity.