Two years ago I decided to silence my impostor syndrome inner voice and to start this science communication blog and its related Instagram page.

Last year I celebrate my scicomm blog first birthday by writing this article.

This year I want to talk about what I learned about writing a science blog and running an Instagram page.

• Write about what you love! I love science and more specifically everything related food science and analytical techniques. I am also a mother and I have tons of questions on motherhood and children’s development. I am a woman in STEM and I was told too often that science is for men and it’s impossible to finish a PhD and having child(ren). That is why I interviewed many amazing women in STEM with such diverse and inspiring stories!

• Write in the language you prefer even if you are not a native speaker. Italian in my native language and I also speak English and German. Many people asked me why I chose to write in English even if I still make spelling mistakes and sometimes I get the grammar wrong. The reason is quite simple: the aim of this blog is to make science accessible to everyone. Accessible for me means from an economical point of view (that is why the blog is free and why I write about expensive scientific papers), from a content point of view (that is why I avoid as much as possibile scientific jargon) and from a linguistic point of view (nowadays most people know English as first, second or third language and writing in English allows me to reach a wider audience).

• Writing can be therapeutical. To be honest, when I was in school I never really liked writing. It was difficult for me to write about feelings and personal experiences. By writing this blog, I discovered that – on the contrary of what I always believed – I actually enjoy the process and feel better after writing about profound and debilitating experiences.

• Your voice is important! Thanks to this blog I have been invited to talk about science communication and how can we make science more accessible; about women in STEM and how can we show by example to girls that they can become engineers, doctors, chemists, astronauts and that there is no such thing as “a man job”; and about parenthood and career and how can we allow parents (especially mothers) to enjoy parenthood and still have a career.

I am a small town Italian girl and I have been a panelist and the Cambridge Science Festival! How crazy is that?!

I can’t wait to see what I will do in the future! Stay tuned!