Everyone gains from science, whether we realize it or not. We all benefit from discoveries across scientific disciplines, from drug discovery to renewable energies to ecosystem function. Healthy ecosystems offer many more benefits (ecosystem services) than we often give them credit for, like improved water quality, pollinated crops, protected shoreline, and regulation of disease.
I aim to demystify science and the scientific process through communication with the public, highlighting the importance of science in our everyday lives. Science isn't something only professional scientists do -- we can all be scientists in discovering things about the world around us.
My past and current efforts to bridge the gap between "scientists" and "non-scientists" (a dichotomy I disagree with!) include outreach at local science museums, organizing university open houses, leading citizen science programs, hosting field trips for elementary and middle school students, and outreach to media outlets.
I aim to demystify science and the scientific process through communication with the public, highlighting the importance of science in our everyday lives. Science isn't something only professional scientists do -- we can all be scientists in discovering things about the world around us.
My past and current efforts to bridge the gap between "scientists" and "non-scientists" (a dichotomy I disagree with!) include outreach at local science museums, organizing university open houses, leading citizen science programs, hosting field trips for elementary and middle school students, and outreach to media outlets.
Citizen Science
With the Center for Natural Lands Management, I led crews of citizen scientists in monitoring riparian species and habitat in the Sierra Nevada and assisted in teaching a 10-week California Naturalist course.
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Science Museums
Currently, I am a Science Communication Fellow at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. In the past, I have volunteered at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco doing visitor engagement, and at the Smithsonian Institute Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. to assist in digitization of collections (see my contributions to the Encyclopedia of Life).
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Field Trips and Events
Some of the most rewarding volunteering I've done has been leading field trips and outreach events. I am one of the founding members of the Students Explore Aquatic Sciences outreach group at the University of Washington, focused on exposing middle schoolers to STEM. In the past, I have led elementary school and middle school classroom activities and field trips, and have organized community-oriented open house events, film screenings and hands-on restoration events.
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Media Outreach
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