Juan Casasbuenas
Training coordinator, SciDev.Net
Juan (juan.casasbuenas@scidev.net) coordinates SciDev.Net’s strategic approach to capacity building for science communication and science journalism. Before joining the organisation, Juan worked for several years as a science teacher with an emphasis in supporting teachers through their training, but also developing a passion for communicating science; which led him to completing a master’s degree in Science Communication at Imperial College. Before joining SciDev.Net he worked at an educational charity; training and supporting researchers to deliver courses based on their research to pupils in schools. Juan has developed the organisation’s strategic training plan and a comprehensive training toolkit with the aim of delivering sustainable training programmes.
Juan project manages a number of capacity building initiatives including the organisation’s training of trainers, media mentoring, and networking programmes in Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa. He manages partnerships with multiple media outlets and research institutions in these countries as well as working closely with SciDev.Net’s regional offices to deliver these programmes. Juan is also in charge of several online capacity building programmes; he produces the organisation’s practical guides which support journalists and researchers on key communication topics, and also coordinated the organisation’s investigative journalism award which received over 50 applications from countries across the global south. He has delivered training to journalists - in collaboration with Gender InSITE - on how to mainstream gender into everyday science reporting. This also resulted in a practical guide for journalists on how to report on science through a gender lens. SciDev.Net are now working on on online course funded by the Elsevier Foundation for researchers. The course will support researchers in integrating gender dimensions into their work but also to develop advocacy skills.