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David M. Secko, PhD

Professor, Journalism


David M. Secko, PhD
Office: L-CJ 4.307  
Communication Studies and Journalism Building,
7141 Sherbrooke W.
Phone: (514) 848-2424 ext. 5175
Email: david.secko@concordia.ca
Website(s): CSJP
Projected Futures
Availability: Please email me.

Biography

Previously worked as a science journalist for The Scientist magazine, Vancouver’s Tyee, the Science Creative QuarterlyCanadian Medical Association Journal and the U.S. Public Library of Science (PLoS). Dr. Secko now studies the future of science journalism. He is the leader of the Concordia Science Journalism Project and our experiential science journalism summer school Projected Futures. 

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellow, W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics, University of British Columbia
  • PhD, Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia 
  • MJ (Science Journalism), University of British Columbia
  • BSc (Hons.), Life Science, Queen’s University

Areas of research interest

I am currently the MA Program Director in the Department of Journalism with a diverse research team working on digital innovation related to how science is communicated with society through journalism.  
 
Before turning to journalism, I was trained as a molecular biologist at the University of British Columbia. This research focused on the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum and efforts to understand how it was capable of living a solitary life until starved, where upon it signaled to its kin to organize into a multicellular organism and crawl together to a new source of food. I followed this up with adventures as a science journalist. 

At Concordia University, my team works to give journalists and students new tools to communicate science
. We are particularly interested in experimental science journalism and innovating with new forms of scientific storytelling. This research seeks to link across journalism, science and ethical issues to clarify and experiment with the roles of publics, experts and journalists in the democratic governance of biotechnology. Examples of our work include examining educational visions for the future of science journalismthe definition and testing of four models of science journalism, and a metasynthesis of the experiences of science journalists. We also study the moderation and design of deliberative engagement events

This research has won a University Research Award and a Dean’s Award for Excellence. It is put into practice through our summer school, Projected Futures

Courses taught

JOUR 645        Projected Futures: Experimental Science Journalism Studies
JOUR 500        Critical Approaches to Journalism
JOUR 402        Specialist Reporting: Science
JOUR 205        Principles of Journalistic Thought


Selected publications

Books

2008. with Charles Reiss. I-language. An Introduction to Linguistics as a Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.

2007. (co-editor).  Pitar Mos: A Building with a view. Papers in honor of Alexandra Cornilescu. Bucharest University Press.

Refereed Articles

2008. `The Split DP hypothesis : evidence from Ancient Greek’. With Allison Kirk. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa

2008. `The asymmetry of Merge’.  With Anna-Maria Di Sciullo. Biolinguistics, vol 2, no. 4, p.260-290.

2008. `Movement chains at the interfaces’. With Anna-Maria Di Sciullo. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, issue no. 53.2/3 (July/November 2008), p. 1001-1037.

2006. `In defense of a quantificational account of definite DPs’. Linguistic Inquiry. 37.2. p.275-288.

Book chapters

2005. `Depictives: Syntactic and Interpretive Asymmetries’. in  UG and External Systems, ed. by Anna-Maria Di Sciullo and R. Delmonte. John Benjamins. p.3-26.

2004. `Focus on Negative Concord’. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theories, ed. by Reineke Bok-Bennema, Bart Hollebrandse, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe and Petra Sleman. John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, p.119-140.

2004. `Romance and `something else'’, with Charles Reiss. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theories, ed. by Reineke Bok-Bennema, Bart Hollebrandse, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe and Petra Sleman. John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, p.141-162.

2004. `Mood and Force Features in the Languages of the Balkans’. With Edit Jakab. In Balkan Syntax and Semantics, ed. by Olga Miseska Tomic. John Benjamins. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, p.315-339.

Conference papers

2010. Number dis(agreement). Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics.

2007. Quantifier-variable relations in Romanian prepositional phrases. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics. Vol IX. No 1. p. 148-160.


Selected conference papers and presentations


Learn more about Dr. Secko and his work


Prospective graduate students


Formation of the Concordia Science Journalism Project

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