Tara Deans Engages with Local Pacific Islander Culture and Events

I am a STEM Ambassador for the University of Utah. This program has played an important role in teaching me how to approach various outreach and public engagement events. I am deeply passionate about educating the public in STEM, and outreach activities for inspiring kids to become interested in STEM fields. I became interested in reaching out to the Pacific Islander population as a panelist for the Ford Foundation Fellowships Program run by the National Academies. This program seeks to increase diversity in the nation’s colleges and universities, and one of the populations identified as severely underrepresented is the Pacific Islander population. Last year we had 0 applications from this group for fellowships. For this reason, I became a STEM Ambassador for my university, which provided advice, training, and connections for me to draw my own roadmap for engaging the public in science.

Who is your name? This is how the Tongan and Samoan languages ask your name. The who represents family, and Pacific Islander names are linked to their ancestors. They are rich in culture, have a collective knowledge, intelligence, and curiosity – called mana – that is passed down with stories through generations. Their ancestors built canoes, and explored what was beyond their horizon by studying wind patterns, and mapping the sun and stars to discover and inhabit islands in the Pacific Ocean. As a STEM Ambassador, I immersed myself in Pacific Islander events to learn about their community and applied what I learned to engage with students at with the Pacific Heritage Academy, a local title 1 elementary school.

The STEM Ambassador Program is a unique experience that has changed how I do public engagement in various aspects of my career. For example, by first immersing myself in local Pacific Islander events to learn more about them, engaging this population was much more meaningful than just showing up with a box of trinkets to do outreach for the day. The approaches and training by the STEM Ambassador Program are truly groundbreaking.