Bethany BrookshireAcademia, Synaptic MisfiresComments are off for this post

Last week I started a list of 5 scientists that I think MORE people should follow.

Why? Because I keep seeing lists of scientists or science communicators that people DO follow. The most popular lists. And the thing is…well if you follows science people on Twitter, you probably already follow most of the people on those lists!

I want to find new people to follow. People you probably don’t know about, but who are tweeting away with great science and cool personality. So last week I posted about 5 scientists people don’t follow on Twitter, but who they clearly SHOULD.

But of course, the instant I thought about those five…I came up with another five!

So here are the caveats. This list is not scientific. It is biased in the extreme toward Twitter accounts I like and is by no means representative of the science Twitter universe in any way. It is merely the first few people I think of off the top of my head when I think of people I WISHED more people followed. The only criteria so far is they have less than 10,000 followers…and I thought of them first, in no particular order. In fact, I would like to see far, far more of these lists. Who are the science people you follow, who you think are the undiscovered secrets of science Twitter? Why? I want to find these people and follow them, and I bet other people do, too.

So without further ado…

6) Johanna Varner (@johannavarner)

also know as Pika Jo, Johanna Varner is a grad student at the University of Utah. And she loves PIKAS, adorable little rodenty things that live in the mountains of the west and make adorable little rodenty calls. She loves them so much she’s getting her PhD in them. It means she tweets some great stuff about climbing in gorgeous places. But that’s not all. Varner also is incredibly passionate about bringing scientific research to students, and takes students out in the field with her!

Some great tweets:

7) Andy Farke (@andyfarke)

Andy Farke is a paleontologist associated with the Webb Schools in California. He’s always tweeting interesting paleontology stuff. But he’s also always taking high school students out into the field to hunt bones! What’s cooler than that? And why didn’t I go to this high school? Follow him and you’ll always learn something.

8) Nicholas St. Fleur (@scifleur)

I only just discovered this guy. He’s a writer at SciAm and also did work at NPR. And I discovered him because…he can REALLY tweet Ebola. I found him live-tweeting the CDC announcement about the Ebola patient in Dallas. He combines good live-tweets with good sense, no fear-mongering here.

From his tweetstream:

9) Micaela Jemison (@bat_whisperer)

Do you love bats? WHY NOT!? Ok, I’ll admit I was not a big bat fan. Then I met Michaela Jemison. She’s a bat ecologist who now works in science communication at the Smithsonian. And she will make you LOVE bats. I have never seen someone with so much honest love for these little critters before. Her tweets are full of cool new fat facts and bat news!

10) Caleph Wilson (@HeyDrWilson)

Caleph Wilson is an immunologist studying HIV at the University of Pennsylvania, where I first met him during my postdoc. His work is really cool, but generally he doesn’t tweet about it. What he DOES tweet about is minorities in science. He’s a critical resource for finding minorities in science and connecting them with journalists to increase their presence in the science and health news scene. If you are looking for more minorities in STEM to follow (and I highly recommend it!), he’s WELL worth it.

And maybe I’ll be back next week with a few more! WHO are the scientists you think everyone should follow on twitter? Let me know!

Bethany Brookshire

Related Articles
The Golden Covers, Nat Geo, and my grandfather

Theme: Illdy.