Testimonials

Lisa Hanlon
Curriculum and Teaching Advisor, Graduate Research School, Western Sydney University.

Dr Geoff Hyde has been conducting workshops for all higher degree candidates at Western Sydney University for the past 3 years. Geoff’s workshops have really been the backbone of our program, with topics such as How to Structure Your Thesis, Argumentation and Critical Thinking, How to Structure Your Confirmation of Candidature Document, Grant Writing, Seminar Skills, Write Papers that Have More Impact, among others. These workshops consistently return very positive feedback, particularly around the Geoff’s knowledge, presentation style and his ability to bridge the gap between the STEM and HASS disciplines with ease. We have found Geoff to be highly skilled with a natural ability to work with students from diverse backgrounds. Most recently Geoff has adapted a number of his workshops to incorporate Zoom which allows our students who live away from campus to attend the training. This has revolutionised the research training we can offer our students who cannot make it onto the campus where the workshop is taking place. Geoff has made these changes with great enthusiasm and good will which has made it seamless for the University and our students. We cannot recommend Geoff and his workshops highly enough!

Ross McMurtrie
Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Geoff and I were colleagues in the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW, for ten years, and we co-taught the third year Plant Ecosystem Processes course. Geoff played a big part in the School’s scientific writing/seminars skills course (for Honours research students), joining it in 1997 and leading it from 2000-04. It was a very useful, popular course and over that period the professionalism of the students’ final seminars, in particular, went through the roof. Geoff has a rare ability to understand an extraordinarily wide range of scientific topics – I have often asked for his opinion about my own research papers. This allows him to provide truly meaningful feedback on a researchers’ projects as he is helping them to improve their manuscript, thesis or seminar. And behind all this is Geoff’s passion for presenting research in a compelling and accessible manner. I would recommend his courses and workshops to anyone who wants to improve their research writing skills. See Ross’s Google Scholar page

Adrienne Hardham
Professor at the Research School of Biology, Australian National University.

During my nearly 40-year career in academic research, I have not encountered anyone better equipped than Geoff Hyde to offer high quality training in academic communications skills. Over the last 20 years, Geoff has built on a natural ability to write well by extensive studies of what makes writing and oral communications effective. He has already been teaching in this area for several years and his training program in academic communication skills would provide an extremely valuable and much-needed service for young and mid-career researchers. The Hardham Lab

Anindya ‘Rana’ Sinha
Professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

Geoff is one of the best science communicators that I have ever had the honour and pleasure to know. He was an inspirational figure to the many students of wildlife biology and conservation who passed through this programme at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. Geoff was able to profoundly improve the academic skills, particularly those of scientific writing and presentations, of many of these students. I feel that Geoff was able to inspire his students not only because of his science communication skills but, in equal measure, due to his diligence, hard work and immense patience. In addition, Geoff is possibly one of the nicest people I know – and he has been a remarkable friend.  Rana on ResearchGate

Ajith Kumar
Director, MSc Program in Wildlife Biology and Conservation. National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore

Shomita Mukherjee
Faculty at Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore.

Geoff is by far the best science communicator and teacher I have interacted with. His depth of analysis and attention to each article/project that is presented to him for review, no matter how varied they are in content, is remarkable. I was astounded at the way my articles, talks and proposals turned out after discussing them with Geoff. He brought out the best without changing the essence and it seemed as though he knew my research better than me! My confidence too improved tremendously. I never realised the importance of a formal science communication course until meeting Geoff and I am sure this is true for most people who have interacted with him. It was after his science communication course at NCBS that the module became a regular feature at ecology conferences and workshops across the country. I was also surprised to learn how many science students now see science journalism as a career instead of research and it will not be incorrect to say it was largely Geoff’s influence. Apart from that, Geoff is also one of the nicest people I have known with immense patience and absolutely no prejudice. Shomita on ResearchGate

Basudha Basu
Research Associate at University of Sheffield

I had the pleasure of knowing Geoffrey while I was a graduate student at NCBS-TIFR some years back. One semester, I took a course he offered about scientific writing and it has made such an incredible difference to my career as a researcher. Not only has my writing improved, I also think about scientific problems and their presentation in different and more creative ways. That course has stood me in good stead all the years since. In addition, Geoffrey is very pleasant and easily approachable! If he were sitting at a particular coffee table, you could be sure there was an interesting scientific discussion in progress! He was immensely popular with the NCBS-TIFR student community for that!

Mohit Kumar Jolly
PhD Candidate – Bioengineering – Rice University

I have worked as a news team member at NCBS with Geoff, and have been the organizer and Teaching Assistant for two annual Scientific Communication Workshops run by him for doctoral students at IIT Kanpur. Geoff is the best teacher of scientific communication I have ever come across. He has inspired a generation of graduate students all across India in various disciplines of science and engineering through his workshops. The most distinguishing aspect of Geoff is his insight into how the process of science and communicating about science go hand in hand. His own communication skills are very well reflected in how he advises other students on scientific communication – be it popular or professional. Also, his hard work and patience makes him a great leader in the field. Mohit at The Conversation

Chakravarthy Marella
Bioinformatician at Leibniz Center for Medicine and Biosciences

I attended Geoff’s “Scientific Communication” course during August-December 2012 at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). In this brief recommendation, I will mention two important “teaching” qualities of Geoff which makes him an asset to any organization. 1. Geoff pays careful attention to each and every student in his class. I can say this from the two observations I made during “Scientific Communication” course. a) The very first thing Geoff did in the course is to memorize each and every student name. He continued that by building one-to-one interaction with each student. b) Geoff put an upper limit on the number of students in his class to make sure he spends quality time with each student. 2. Geoff uses technology to reach out to students in effective way. At NCBS, he put lot of effort in making his course available through Moodle which made it easier for students to obtain lecture notes and submit assignments. In fact, Geoff’s course is the best online course in NCBS so far. Geoff is the best instructor any student would ask for and I wish he continues to reach out to more students.