Science is “never really considered done,” says Kimberly Eck, senior associate vice president for research at Emory. So when she was working to launch a podcast, she wanted the name to focus on the impact while also allowing some flexibility for how that impact changes over time.
Thus, “Impact in Progress” was born.
Eck hosts the show, which is currently airing its second season.
Episodes highlight how research and scholarship at Emory are changing lives across the community, region and world. The first season’s topics ranged from building more compassionate schools to the ways clergy respond to domestic trauma and beyond.
It’s a broad approach, but one that makes sense: the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research champions all nine schools that make up Emory University.
Eck believes misconceptions about the importance of academic research are rooted in two related problems: not enough researchers talk about their work in approachable ways, and not enough members of the public understand how university research benefits their lives.
“That connection can be really hard to articulate, and that’s exactly what this podcast is aimed at doing,” Eck says.
Focusing on impact
As Eck helps Emory researchers prepare to record their podcast episodes, they focus on framing the conversation about why their work matters in terms that audiences can easily follow — making sure listeners understand the big picture before delving into the details.
“The most common scenario is the researchers start out too granularly, and we have to back it up,” Eck says.
That translation is the secret sauce of the show. Listeners walk away from each episode understanding why the research is important and impactful, what’s difficult about it and what’s next.
“It’s important to me that faculty tell the story in their own voice,” says Eck. “I’m conducting the interview, but the overwhelming majority of information is coming from the researcher. It’s their decisions, their words, and they can say the information in the way that feels most natural to them.”
One of those guests was Sheila Rauch, who discussed her work with post-traumatic stress disorder and veterans during the podcast’s first season. Rauch is a professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, deputy director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, and director of mental health research and program evaluation at the Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center.
Rauch participated in Emory’s 2025 Public Scholarship Academy in order to bring her research to more audiences through public-facing social media and connections. There, she met Eck.
“Being on ‘Impact in Progress’ gave me a chance to flex some of those muscles I’d started working on during the academy,” Rauch says. “I do a lot of scholarly presentations, but you need to present your research differently to get the public hooked and for viewers to see what you’re doing and why it’s relevant to them.”
That pivot isn’t simple.
“The hardest part for me was trying to distill 30 years of work into a message I want to get across in a 20-minute podcast,” Rauch says. “Trying to make sure I had a honed message that I could clearly communicate was the hardest part, but the preparatory interviews helped me get there.”
Building a broader audience
Another goal of the podcast? Introducing new audiences to Emory researchers through local and national media.
“The collaboration with Kimberly Eck and the ‘Impact in Progress’ team has been a natural partnership,” says Sylvia Carson, executive director of media relations. “Their team produces strong, story-driven conversations that surface timely, newsworthy themes, and our role is to listen with a media lens and help translate those moments into external coverage opportunities.”
Experts not only benefit from conversations with Eck, but from media training by Carson’s team. Carson notes that many experts are surprised by how quickly their confidence grows and how much stronger answers become with a bit of structure and rehearsal.
“One thing I always like to emphasize to our faculty is that they are the experts. No one can explain their work better than they can, and our job is simply to help them feel prepared to do that in a media setting,” says Carson.
Thanks to the prep work, Rauch says she was able to enjoy her segment on Fox Atlanta because she knew exactly what message she wanted to get across. It’s an experience she hopes to continue building on.
“It’s definitely made me think about my research differently,” Rauch reflects. “Now as I’m writing papers, I’m often thinking about how I would distill it for an interview or how I would describe it to the public.”
Eck says season two has “something for everyone,” representing the breadth of research happening across the university.
“Our faculty members’ work matters,” says Carson, “and we want to help them bring their research to a broader audience, whether that impacts the person watching, reading or listening, or helps move the conversation forward in their field.”