About

The medium version (250 words)

Dr Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, writer, presenter, comedian, trainer and storyteller based in London. She has a PhD in Materials Science and identifies as a materials generalist, equally fascinated by merino wool as stainless steel, through all the wonderful metals, plastics, ceramics, glasses and natural substances that make up our material world.

Anna channels this passion by storytelling with materials on the screen, radio, stage and page; her first book, Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making, is out now. Anna can often be found London’s pub basements performing stand-up comedy about materials and making. She also frequents science festivals across the country entertaining audiences with demo-packed shows. Anna’s podcast, Handmade, features weekly chats with artists, makers, movers and shakers all with a love of materials.

Having developed her own unique blend of autobiographical and technical science communication, Anna now trains professional scientists, engineers and school teachers in the art of scientific storytelling. She has won numerous prestigious industry awards for her work, including Young Engineer of the Year by the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Silver Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). In 2022 she was made a Fellow of the IOM3, one of the youngest in its history.

In her spare time, Anna plays the trumpet in a funk and soul covers band called Don’t Freak Out and is an ultra-endurance open water swimmer; she swam the English Channel in July 2018. Oh, and it’s pronounced “Por-shy-ski”.

The long version - Anna’s Story

Hello, I’m Anna -  I’m a materials scientist, storyteller, author, podcaster, speaker, presenter, trainer, trumpeter, English Channel swimmer, feminist, knitter, walker and border collie dog mum, originally from Bedford, now settled in Walthamstow, East London.

I started out my career with a degree in Materials Science at Oxford University, then moved to London to pursue a doctorate at UCL in hydrogen storage materials, soon becoming immersed in the world of science communication and public engagement after one too many arguments about the Hindenburg disaster.  

This began with stand-up comedy, writing magazine articles and producing a podcast. But I quickly ran out of jokes about hydrogen, and so began my obsession with story. I devoured every book, blog and YouTube video I could find on the subject, and started honing my craft on the comedy stage, from Cheltenham Science Festival to the Edinburgh Fringe. 

When the time came to write up my doctoral thesis, I wrote that as a story too, and passed my viva with no corrections. This proved to me the potential of story in science. 

I continued to live a double-life as a researcher and storyteller, writing a memoire/popular science book, Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2021), and leading large engagement projects like Bedtime Stories for Very Young Engineers, training engineers in storytelling skills to write and tell bedtime stories about inventing, fixing, making and doing for children aged 2-5.

In 2020, I took a remote position as an in-house science writer for a huge research group at Imperial College London. Here, I was responsible for writing multi-million pound research grants, proof-reading the scientists’ research outputs and establishing a public engagement programme. Being involved across the whole pipeline of science - from funding to reporting to public dissemination - showed me how stories were present throughout the process of science, yet the scientists themselves struggled to tell them.

So, I developed a training courses for them, Storytelling for Researchers, and founded my own company to deliver them, Storyology Ltd. Since then, I’ve travelled up and down the country delivering training sessions in-person, and online workshops for institutes in mainland Europe and North America.

To formalise my expertise as a storyteller, I embarked on a part-time research project as a Story Associate at University of the Arts London, in association with StoryArcs, a research programme at Bath Spa University. I’m working with the UK Reproducibility Network on a year-long project studying the impact of story on science, interviewing dozens of experts along the science communication pipeline, from funders to researchers to journalists to entertainment-makers to the general public.

By exploring the intersection between these two worlds of story and science, I’ve helped thousands of researchers communicate what they do better, and seen some interesting impacts on scientific discourse in wider society. Ultimately, I hope my work will lead to a vision for how story could be used as a force for good in empowering everyone to make better-informed decisions about their lives.

My current practice brings together these years of hands-on storytelling practice, with a deep knowledge of the systems of science into a communication approach that is inclusive, creative and unconventional. 

Representation

Books: Laura Macdougall at United Agents.

Presenting and Digital: Matt Nicholls and Jamie Stockwell

Testimonials