When scientists leave the lab and settle down to watch the newest superhero movie, they aren’t necessarily expecting everything about the plot to be perfectly realistic. Still, when a character describes something outright incorrectly or the plot relies on stereotypes, it can tarnish the filmgoing experience.
Representing science accurately—from the basic concepts to the people who do the work—in media is important to promote public trust and inspire interest in science, and basing stories in reality can also just make them more interesting. The team behind the Science and Entertainment Exchange (The Exchange), developed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), aims to achieve this goal by putting on events to bring science experts and filmmakers together and compiling a database of experts to have on call when a production team needs scientific input.
A Mission to Improve Science Portrayals in Media
The Exchange came about as the result of three separate events coming together, according to the program’s director, Richard Loverd. In the early 2000s, then NAS president Ralph Cicerone asked in a meeting why scientists used to be “the good guys” in movies but in recent films were more often the villains. He tasked Ann Merchant, then the director for outreach and marketing at NAS, with developing ways to improve the representation of science with the public. Around the same time, an engineer and member of the National Academy of Engineering, Neil Gershenfeld, told Merchant about his experience consulting for the movie Minority Report.
Merchant’s connection to Hollywood came through producer Jerry Zucker and his wife Janet Zucker. The couple had been involved in promoting scientific research since the early 2000s when policies had limited stem cell studies, directly impacting potential cures for the type 1 diabetes that their daughter had.
The Exchange officially launched as a collaboration between scientists and filmmakers in 2008.
Loverd explained that looking for inspiration from science and nature can help writers frame their story. “If you can find that truth nugget somewhere in the real world for something that you want—whether it’s a superpower, or a big thing that happens in the world, or, I don’t know, a new technology for your heist, or whatever it is—if you can latch on to something that’s real, you always have that as your true north.”
Neuroscientist Patrick House presented his work at a past salon hosted by The Exchange.
Zachary Dripps
In his nearly two decades with the project, Loverd helped put on dozens of events and built a database of more than 3,600 experts across scientific disciplines, leading to more than 4,300 consultations.
Loverd hunts for his scientific experts in a variety of venues. As a part of NAS, he references the organization’s extensive list of members and the National Research Council. He also attends TED Talks and events like South by Southwest to find who can captivate an audience and make sense of complex science. “[I’m] trying to make sure I get in front of the people who I think ‘Wow, that person! I majored in film, and that person made me understand something about physics. [I’ve] got to go talk to that person,’” he said.
And sometimes, people come to him, dialing The Exchange hotline or sending him an email. After a quick phone call, Loverd can add these individuals and their expertise into his growing database of scientific professionals.
Making Connections Between Artists and Scientists
Beyond just being a source for filmmakers to get the names of scientists, The Exchange hosts events that are meant to get these two groups of people talking together. They host mixers called salons where an invited scientist gives a 20-minute talk on their work. In another event, “science speed dating,” the invited researchers have seven minutes to wow their entertainment audience with their scientific niche—no PowerPoint slides allowed. Starting in 2014, The Exchange also started putting on writer’s retreats, where scientists give TED Talk-style presentations and then work with filmmakers on a variety of thought-provoking exercises.
In 2025, Enrico Castillo, currently a community psychiatrist in San Francisco and previously a mental health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, was invited to give a writer’s retreat talk. Castillo studied how people with mental illnesses experienced the negative impacts of arrest and incarceration, specifically homelessness. In his presentation, Castillo shared not only data from his work but also quotes from clinical providers and affected individuals. “I found that our work resonated with projects that [entertainment professionals] had thought of creating,” he said.
After the presentations, scientists and film professionals eat and interact in a mixer type of event at salons hosted by The Exchange
Zachary Dripps
After the talk, Castillo said that he had several positive conversations with attendees. Some said that they felt their ideas had been validated and that they were happy to know that, when they decide to start their project, experts like Castillo would be available to help. “It sparked really great conversations, new connections, opportunities to take science off the shelf and get it into the hands of people who reach the broader population in ways that are very different than I do,” Castillo said.
The experience also opened Castillo’s eyes to the innerworkings of the entertainment industry. “[It was] exciting to hear from people in creative fields to learn about their work and their process, the projects that they were doing or had done, and the challenges that they had to overcome to accurately portray science in the media,” he said.
Loverd said, the goal of these events isn’t necessarily to launch a new film project. “What we want is a new community, and we want people who never would have met before to actually care about each other,” he said.
Better Science Representation Makes Better Movies
When entertainment professionals are inspired by researchers’ work or a laboratory directly, they are far more likely to invite scientists into their production process than if Loverd had tried to insist on it on his own. Instead, with this indirect strategy, Loverd gets calls from filmmakers about projects that they need insight on—from asteroids to volcanoes to genetics—and who want to connect with the appropriate expert. Sometimes this is simply to check a part of a script for sufficient accuracy, but other times producers want help in the earlier stages of the project, getting the scientist much more involved.
Actress and science communicator Christina Ochoa spoke with oceanographer Joellen Russell at a past salon event hosted by The Exchange.
Zachary Dripps
“Writers are a curious bunch in general, and scientists are also a curious bunch. There are actually more parallels to the creative process of science and the creative process of screenwriting than you would expect. And I think that once they find their common language, which is actually not that hard to do, you really do have great outcomes most of the time,” Loverd said.
Loverd has seen these results firsthand. Sometimes, the scientific representation is subtle. For example, he’s seen showrunners introduce characters that reflect the personalities and demographics of the researchers that they met. This was why a lab technician in the show Eureka had pink hair. In another show, Loverd saw that the producers cast a Black actor as a young scientist after introducing them to an expert of the same demographic. “We try to overly gift the entertainment community with a more diverse-than-is-reflective-of-the-field-of-STEM group of people who, just by dint of being there, are going to change the conversation,” Loverd said, helping to break the mold of the stereotypical scientist.
Other times, though, scientific experts consult on critical elements of the plot and movie development, helping ground even science fiction in reality. For example, scientists across fields created a “show Bible” for the nation of Wakanda in Black Panther, guiding everything from the urban planning to the concept of vertical gardens. Loverd said that basing these elements in reality makes movies much more interesting to watch.
“[The Exchange writer’s retreat] shows the National Academy of Sciences’ creativity in making sure that science isn’t siloed,” Castillo said. “It really showed me what it takes to make science impactful: It’s not to wait for people to consume our science in the traditional ways, but to invite people to break bread with each other and spend time with one another, get to know one another on a personal level.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.the-scientist.com ’
