2024-2025 Microgrant Recipients
Research!America congratulates the recipients of the 2024-2025 Public Engagement Training Content Microgrant award. Launched in 2024, the program provides early to mid-career scientists with the opportunity to create open-source curricula to train fellow scientists in communication and other skills needed to effectively engage with the public.
Sparked by initial funding from the Lasker Foundation, awards of up to $5,000 have been made to 12 scientists, including PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, professional degree candidates, and junior faculty, to develop innovative training to foster scientists’ engagement with the public. Additional funding for the program comes from the Dana Foundation for awards related to neuroscience, and from science communicator Dennis Mangan.
Read on to learn about the 2024-2025 recipients.
Celia McLean, Cornell University
Celia McLean is a graduate student at Cornell University. In collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Celia aims to create a course called BIRDSONG that pairs undergraduate students with students from the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) — a state program for students with disabilities — to design an outreach event. Through this program, Celia seeks to instill in undergraduate students an understanding of participatory design research, science outreach, and community engagement while increasing disability awareness within the science community.
Emma Courtney, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences
Emma Courtney, a graduate student at the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory of Biological Sciences, is developing a course to explore the social media landscape and its impact on science communication. Course participants will learn about the changing science communication landscape (from old to new media), learn how misinformation and disinformation affect public trust in science, participate in science communication case studies, and create podcasts, short-form videos and other communications products.
Elena YH Lin, University of California San Diego
Elena YH Lin is a biomedical graduate student at the University of California San Diego. In her series of science art (SciArt) workshops, she teaches scientists about different forms of science communication, including storytelling, zines, prose, and performance art. She hopes to use SciArt as a means of building trust with communities through social media, thereby fighting misinformation.
Brean Prefontaine, Duke University
Brean Prefontaine is a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University creating a workshop that focuses on how to evaluate the impact of public engagement efforts. As scientists work more with the public, evaluation of project performance is an increasingly important and underemphasized aspect of public engagement. The goal of the course is to make public engagement more effective through proper evaluation of projects, leading to better project development.
Anqi Ji, Howard University
Dr. Anqi Ji is a faculty member at Howard University. Having a background in working with biomass-based composites, she has experience communicating science to the public through the lens of sustainability—a lens she will use in her new science communication workshop. She plans on teaching undergraduate and graduate students about science communication, focusing on the effectiveness of a two-way dialogue between scientists and the larger community. Anqi will incorporate strategies to engage with underrepresented communities through traditional and new forms of media.
Patrick O’Neill, Penn State University
Patrick O’Neill is a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University. He is creating a series of online training videos and instructional materials focusing on the relationships between researchers and policymakers. To combat misconceptions of science among policymakers, researchers must form interpersonal connections with them. These connections are not formed by one-sided messaging. Through his course, Patrick will use the SCOPE model, a research advocacy method, to teach scientists how to have effective meetings with public officials about the impact of research.
Saurja DasGupta, University of Notre Dame
Dr. Saurja DasGupta is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame. His project focuses on developing a modular course to teach PhD students and Postdocs how to communicate science to the public through popular science writing, Sci-Art, and social media engagement. For this project, Saurja is collaborating with Club SciWri, a science communication platform, where he is a Contributing Editor.
Andrew S. Cale, Indiana University School of Medicine
Dr. Andrew S. Cale is a faculty member at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He aims to fight science misinformation and distrust with a training program geared toward medical professionals and students entering the medical field. Distrust in science, highlighted by the widespread increase in vaccine hesitancy, can be best addressed by forming personal connections between the health care provider and patient. Dr. Cale sees teaching professionals how to integrate personal narratives into patient conversations as the way to facilitate these connections thereby addressing the larger societal issues.
Jessica Spence, Virginia Tech
Jessica Spence is a graduate student at Virginia Tech. She seeks to improve communication between federally funded agricultural research and consumers through web-based interactive lessons and resources. These will inform scientists and researchers about the importance of public benefit statements and teach them how to translate these statements into content digestible by non-scientists.
The next three efforts are neuroscience-related and funded by the Dana Foundation:
Jacklyn Nguyen, University of Utah
Jacklyn Nguyen, a graduate student at the University of Utah in neuroscience, is creating a Science Communication Hackathon. This boot camp aims to educate participants how to interact clearly and effectively with diverse audiences, including patient advocates, policymakers, and underrepresented populations. The best hackathon projects will be refined and incorporated into an open-sourced Interactive Science Communication Toolkit.
Justine Silva, University of California, Irvine
Justine Silva is a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) who is partnering with the UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MINDS) to create online technical and sensitivity training materials for brain donation. The program has two goals: to educate medical professionals to communicate with donor families in such delicate situations and to ensure greater consistency in sample collection. Communicating effectively with donor families from underrepresented communities is particularly essential for building trust in science and ensuring diverse representation in research.
Taissa Lytchenko, University of Nevada, Reno
Taissa Lytchenko is a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is creating a neuroscience education course for incarcerated youths. She proposes a new lens with which to provide drug education, focused on physiology as opposed to behavior. The goal of this new approach is a more holistic and science-based approach that increases the understanding of the risks of drug use within science education.