Rebecca Priestley

Rebecca Priestley is an associate professor and Director of the Centre for Science in Society at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She has degrees in earth sciences, history of science, and creative writing. She visited Antarctica three times between 2011 and 2018, on media and education & outreach programmes, and has written magazine articles, blog posts, and a book about Antarctica, with a particular focus on Antarctic paleoclimate research. She teaches online courses about Antarctic science and culture through Victoria University and edX and her most recent book is Dispatches from Continent Seven: an anthology of Antarctic science (2016) and a memoir, Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica (2019).

• Research projects / interests:
  • Science history of Antarctica, particularly in the Ross Dependency
  • Antarctic science communication now and through the 20th century
  • Public engagement with Antarctic science
  • Antarctic climate change communication
  • Scientists’ writings about Antarctica

Keywords: History of science, public engagement with science, science communication, creative non-fiction, online learning, climate change communication