Winter 2024 Newsletter

Letter From the STEMAP Team

Dear STEM Ambassadors and Community Partners,

STEMAP In Summary

The STEMAP team has been busy since our last newsletter in Spring of 2022! We have hired new staff, moved departments, attended several national conferences, developed a new funding model, and established professional collaborations to facilitate our transition off our seven years of NSF funding with the completion of our most recent AISL grant. Through these partnerships, we have trained over 100 new STEM Ambassadors, bringing our total number of STEMAP alumni to 275 researchers across 24 academic institutions! Our Ambassadors have built relationships with over 100 community groups through their public engagement efforts. We are excited to continue growing our network of community-engaged STEM Ambassadors with our Spring 2024 cohort at the University of Utah and upcoming Summer 2024 Navigating Home STEMAP cohort with student researchers at the University of the Virgin Islands, the University of Guam, and the Inter American University of Puerto Rico! Read more about the island-based Navigating Home program on the NSF grant page here. Finally, we are excited to begin working with local sustainability researchers through the recently funded NSF Regional Innovation Engine: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE)!

Welcome Corinne, STEMAP’s Program Coordinator

Our new Program Coordinator, Corinne Ryan, began working with STEMAP in November of 2023! Corinne holds a Master"s in Ecology from Western Colorado University, where she researched environmental influences on bat occupancy in high-elevation habitats. She is passionate about the confluences of sustainability, conservation, and social justice, including areas such as wildlife ecology, permaculture gardening, and inclusivity in the natural resources field. Corinne oversees administrative tasks, manages STEMAP"s social media, and assists with the Spring 2024 STEMAP cohort.

If you would like to keep up with STEMAP on social media, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We are grateful for your continued support of public engagement with science and STEMAP"s work!

Sara K. Yeo
Director, STEM Ambassador Program
Andrew B. George
Associate Director, STEM Ambassador Program
Corinne Ryan
Program Coordinator, STEM Ambassador Program
Nalini M. Nadkarni
Founder and Senior Advisor, STEM Ambassador Program

Wrapping Up the CSOE 2023 Cohort Training

Continuing our exciting partnership with the NSF Center for Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry (CSOE), we trained a cohort of 21 STEM Ambassadors across nine institutions! This cohort occurred in a hybrid format with several workshops and group meetings taking place over Zoom, and the whole group coming together a couple of times for in-person trainings and community building. We convened in Salt Lake City in July 2023 for the Design and Engage workshops and met up again at Wayne State University in Detroit for a new in-person STEMAP Evaluation workshop.

Many Ambassadors in this cohort worked in small groups with colleagues from their home institutions to deliver creative public engagement events across the country in venues including the City Museum in St. Louis, the Rhode Island 4-H club, farmer"s markets in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City, and the University of Michigan F.E.M.M.E.S. student organization.

We"re grateful for the extensive training and logistical support provided by Victoria Russell (CSOE Outreach Coordinator) and Katie Snow (CSOE Managing Director). Thank you!

Welcome STEMAP UU Spring Cohort!

We are excited to welcome our new cohort of University of Utah STEM Ambassadors for the Spring 2024 semester!

This cohort features PhD students, Masters students, postdocs and staff from nine departments across the university, including Psychology, Molecular Pharmaceutics, Internal Medicine, Physics & Astronomy, and Biology. We"re excited to strengthen our existing relationships with local community organizations that have worked with past Ambassadors and establish new community connections throughout this semester.

You can follow along with this cohort"s public engagement activities on our STEMAP Instagram page (@stemapteam)!

New Funding Model for STEMAP

Following the completion of our second NSF AISL grant, the STEMAP team has developed a new funding model based on partnerships with University of Utah centers, schools, and offices and a series of pay-for-service training activities. Our program has received financial support from partners on campus including the NEXUS (Interdisciplinary Exchange for Utah Science) center and the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). Through these partnerships, the STEMAP team continues to offer free NSF Broader Impacts workshops and consultations for UU faculty, staff, and students.

We now charge a fee for participation in semester-long STEMAP training cohorts and individual public engagement workshops. We are pleased to be able to offer scholarships to Ambassadors who need financial assistance. Many Ambassadors cover the course fee by writing STEMAP training into the Broader Impacts sections of their NSF grants. Need assistance writing your NSF grant? We can help with that too! For more information about NSF grant writing assistance through STEMAP and OVPR, see the “Other News” section below.

Please contact Andrew (andrew.george@utah.edu) or Sara (sara.yeo@utah.edu) for more information about joining a STEMAP cohort or writing a STEMAP training into your NSF grant!

Recent Projects

The STEM Ambassador Program has been able to create and continue partnerships for Ambassadors with several amazing organizations over the past year. These include: SLC public libraries, the Ronald McDonald House, University of Utah Youth Education Center, and House of Hope Utah.

STEMAP Conference Presentations

The STEMAP team has presented at several conferences since our last newsletter. Andrew gave talks about the STEMAP model of PES at the 2022 Materials Science and Technology (MS&T) Technical Meeting and Exhibition and the 2023 the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting. He also presented a poster at the 2023 NSF Advancing Research Impacts in Society (ARIS) summit and joined a panel of Michigan State University STEMAP partners including Miles McNall, Diane Doberneck, Hailey Becker, Ahnalee Brinks, and Allison Pease to discuss STEMAP at the 2023 Engagement Scholarship Consortium conference.

STEMAP’s Founder and Senior Advisor, Nalini Nadkarni, and STEMAP Co-PI, Dennis Schatz, both received prestigious Enduring Achievement Awards at the 2023 ARIS Summit for their long-term and impactful commitment to public engagement with science! Congratulations, Nalini and Dennis!

Dennis Schatz gave a presentation about the STEMAP Immersion process at the 2023 Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) virtual conference. Andrew and Dennis also joined a team of Utah-based public science communicators including Laura George, Victoria Russell, and Dale Cummings to give a talk at the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) 2022 Virtual Conference.

Attending these conferences provides an opportunity for our team to stay up to date on the newest PES research and programs, and provides a venue for us to share our PES experiences with other practitioners and professionals across the country. The STEMAP team plans to attend the ARIS Summit again this year!

Navigating Home Summer 2024

We are excited to partner with marine scientists at the University of the Virgin Islands, the University of Guam, and the University of Puerto Rico through a recently funded Navigating Home NSF grant. Andrew and Corinne will lead a hybrid STEMAP training cohort of graduate students at these three institutions beginning in April 2024. We will bring together the USVI and PR Ambassadors for in-person Design and Engage workshops at the University of the Virgin Islands in June. The STEMAP team will train additional cohorts of scientists from these universities in the summers of 2025 and 2026. We are excited to work with the Navigating Home STEM Ambassadors to engage with their local communities around their marine science work!

Other News

Broader Impacts Workshops and Consultations with the OVPR

In addition to our regular Ambassador training programs, STEMAP also offers Broader Impacts consultations for University of Utah students, staff, and faculty working on NSF grant proposals. These 30-minute meetings with STEMAP Associate Director, Dr. Andrew George, will help individuals develop the Broader Impacts section of their grants by providing inspiration and guidance for unique outreach approaches. These consultations are a great option for those seeking NSF grant funding and who would like assistance crafting a creative proposal. These consultations can increase the likelihood of a grant proposal’s acceptance. For more information about scheduling consultations, email andrew.george@utah.edu or visit the link below.

Schedule a Broader Impacts Consultation

The STEMAP team also continues to work with the OVPR’s Research Education team to offer Broader Impacts workshops for groups of 10 or more researchers interested in writing NSF grant or fellowship proposals. Andrew leads 1-hour workshops that guide researchers through the basics of understanding the NSF’s BI requirements and designing innovative BI activities that will make your proposal stand out. You and your research group can sign up for these free workshops using the link below.

Sign Up for a Broader Impacts Workshop

Three Minute Thesis

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is a training series hosted by the University of Utah’s Graduate School. Our very own Associate Director, Andrew George, served as a facilitator last year and will continue the role this spring!

Participating in 3MT is a great chance to practice and improve oral communication skills as you hone a three-minute presentation about your dissertation research that is targeted to a non-specialist audience. The training starts January 30th and involves three weekly meetings that provide a chance to get and give peer feedback. Students will create a 3MT entry video, and a panel of postdoctoral judges will select a set of presenters to compete in the live, final Showcase and Celebration in March.⁠

There will be cash prizes for winners and swag for participants. The student chosen as the first-place winner will be invited to compete in a regional competition at the end of March.⁠

STEMAP Immersion Workshop at Virginia Tech

Finally, Andrew was invited to lead an adapted STEMAP Immersion workshop as a guest lecturer in Dr. Dana Hawley’s PES course for biology graduate students at Virginia Tech. The students enjoyed the workshop and found it valuable in planning their upcoming public engagement activities. We hope to continue working with VT biologists in the future!The STEMAP team is happy to adapt our training workshops to fit your course’s needs! Please contact Andrew George for more information about STEMAP’s training services.

Below you will find reflection articles written by STEM Ambassador Program alumni. These alumni participated in STEMAP in spring 2023.

Bryce Wallis Opens Dialogue for Women at the House of Hope

Bryce Wallis was a graduate student at the University of Utah’s Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics at the time of her STEM Ambassadorship in Spring 2023. Bryce’s research involved re-engineering gene therapies to treat ovarian cancer.

Swiss locals looked at me skeptically as I shouted and cursed at my phone. I had just connected to the Wi-Fi on the high-speed train and the texts had flooded in about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. It felt defeating and devastating. As a feminist and scientist, I believe that women should have autonomy over their reproductive rights and health, and it was challenging for me to understand why others were against that. In the months that followed, I frequently voiced my dissent, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have. One friend looked at me curiously and said, “well, what are you going to do about it?”

When I returned to the States at the end of the summer to continue my graduate studies in the department of molecular pharmaceutics at the University of Utah, I saw an intriguing email about the STEM Ambassador program. I eagerly applied and was ecstatic to join the spring 2023 cohort to finally take actionable steps and engage with the community about women’s reproductive health.

The focal group I chose to work with was House of Hope (https://houseofhopeut.org/), which is a non-profit organization that aims to treat women with substance use disorders by empowering women, strengthening families, and rebuilding lives. With abortion access potentially becoming extremely limited in Utah, my goal was to provide information about birth control options and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), so that this vulnerable community of women would be able to make informed decisions about their bodies. My thought process was that if abortion becomes inaccessible, women will need to have reliable and accessible birth control options to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

It seems simple, but unfortunately many women are never taught about birth control options and STIs, especially here in Utah where there are many religious barriers to reproductive education. So, I did my research and prepared a detailed presentation about birth control options and STIs to present to House of Hope to provide them the tools to make informed decisions about their bodies. Importantly, I added resources on how to access birth control methods in Utah, specifically for women on Medicaid. Knowing this has become a political hot topic, I covered my bases by fact checking my information and asking for advice about how to present information in a non-biased manner. I also advertised around the College of Pharmacy to raise money and feminine supplies to donate.

On March 30th, I arrived at House of Hope with feminine supplies, a $600 donation, craft supplies, and my presentation ready to go. In the first session, I sat in a circle with about thirty women representing a diverse array of ages and backgrounds. We got started and I was astonished by the level of engagement. The women had so many questions and valuable insight to add. It became an open dialogue in lieu of a ‘lecture.’ We all started sharing personal stories about our experiences with certain birth control methods or STIs. It was empowering being in a room full of women who felt comfortable sharing very intimate details about their experiences. Many of them already have children, so they were a wealth of information. For example, they taught me that emergency contraception pills become less effective at higher weights. Collectively learning alongside one another as women made this experience impactful and special.

I ended up doing two, two-hour sessions, and ran out of time in both sessions because the women were so engaged. The feedback reinforced my personal experience; “I love how engaged the clients were and how safe and comfortable they felt with sharing. Lots of clients have asked me for the link to the reproductive wellness kits and we are working on ordering them.” It was evident that the women felt grateful for the information. Personally, I was thrilled with the positive experience and was happy that there was no negativity given the political nature that can unfortunately come along with this topic.

Overall, the engagement activity was a huge success and went better than I imagined. Creating safe and open spaces where women can talk about reproductive health is critical, especially with abortion becoming more inaccessible in many states. Being vulnerable and sharing my personal experiences helped me to connect with this group of women and it helped create an environment where taboo topics could be normalized – as they should. This experience taught me that its imperative to put voice to action and that informing women about their reproductive health choices can ultimately change their lives.

I’d like to thank House of Hope for their hosting this engagement activity and their willingness to partner with the STEM Ambassador program. Huge shout out to Mara Powers, who helps change women’s lives every day at House of Hope. I’d also like to thank my STEM Ambassador mentor, Andrew George, who runs an incredible program. Many thanks to everyone that donated to this wonderful organization.

Onyeka Obidi, Chisom Nwoye, and Sandra Lee Get Kids Excited About Science

As passionate advocates for science education and outreach, we had the incredible opportunity to lead a science outreach event aimed at inspiring children’s interest in the fascinating world of science. We engaged with the University of Utah Club U Summer JV Campers. Our objective was to engage young minds in the wonders of science, introduce them to potential career paths, and kindle their curiosity about the molecular world, focusing on DNA, proteins, and structural biology. This report captures the highlights and outcomes of this inspiring event.

Our outreach event began with informative and engaging lectures on various aspects of science. We introduced the young participants to the concept of science, explaining its importance and relevance in our daily lives. We emphasized the diverse career opportunities within the scientific field, with a special focus on structural biology, showcasing how scientists unlock the secrets of life at the molecular level.

To make the world of molecules more tangible, we conducted sessions on DNA and proteins. We introduced the kids to basic techniques used in studying DNA such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), and DNA Gel Electrophoresis.  We used interactive presentations, models, and videos to simplify complex concepts and showcase the vital roles these molecules play in all living organisms. The children were captivated by the idea that something as tiny as DNA could carry the blueprint for an entire living being.

One of the event’s highlights was the introduction of 3D printed models of Hemoglobin and DNA. These intricate, lifelike structures allowed the children to explore the molecular world in a hands-on and visual way. We explained the significance of Hemoglobin in carrying oxygen in our blood and how DNA serves as the instruction manual for life.

To further engage the children’s curiosity and creativity, we organized a scavenger hunt for the 3D models of Hemoglobin and DNA. The excitement and enthusiasm in the room were palpable as the children searched for these hidden treasures. After the hunt, they had the opportunity to paint and customize their 3D printed models, adding a personal touch to their scientific exploration.

Throughout the event, we encouraged the children to ask questions and share their thoughts. Their curiosity knew no bounds, and they asked insightful and thought-provoking questions about science, careers, diseases, and the molecular world. It was heartening to see their enthusiasm for learning.

The outreach event proved to be a resounding success in achieving its objectives:

Inspiration: Many children expressed newfound interest in science and a desire to explore careers in the field, particularly in structural biology.

Understanding: The simplified explanations and 3D models helped children grasp complex scientific concepts and appreciate the significance of DNA and proteins.

Engagement: The scavenger hunt and creative activities made learning interactive and enjoyable, fostering a positive attitude towards science.

Curiosity: The event ignited a spark of curiosity, with children asking questions and wanting to learn more about the molecular world.

Our science outreach event was a memorable journey into the world of science for young minds. It successfully achieved its goal of inspiring children’s interest in science, introducing them to potential career paths, and fostering a deeper understanding of DNA, proteins, and structural biology. We hope that the enthusiasm and curiosity sparked during this event will continue to grow and lead these children on a lifelong journey of scientific exploration and discovery.

Amy Buxton Brings Bird Knowledge to the Ronald McDonald House

Amy Buxton, a graduate student studying conservation ecology at the University of Utah at the time of her STEM Ambassadorship in 2023. Amy’s outreach activity revolved around her avian conservation research interests and her desire to work with children undergoing cancer treatment.

After a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding experience with the STEM Ambassador Program, I found it surprisingly difficult to synthesize my thoughts on paper. I attribute this is in large part to my desire to do justice to the opportunity I had to work with the Ronald McDonald House, and perhaps also in part to the somewhat personal nature of my experience.

One of the first steps in the STEMAP process is considering our own lives—our interests, our academic pursuits, our hobbies, our experiences, etc.—and how these elements may help us connect to a group within our community. I came into the program very interested in working with either children, as I have young kids and have always loved working with that age group, or with cancer patients, as I recently lost my husband to cancer. Considering community groups with which I could engage, I thought of schools, libraries, hospitals, and hospice. While all these are wonderful groups with which to engage, another option came forward while I brainstormed with the STEMAP director that I hadn’t previously considered —the Ronald McDonald House. The Ronald McDonald House aptly calls itself a “home-away-from-home for pediatric patient families” (https://www.rmhcslc.org/) and provides a home for families while their children receive treatment at the hospital. I have great respect for this organization as I grew up near a pediatric hospital in the Midwest and knew a little of the unique and important service that the Ronald McDonald House provides. I reached out to the Intermountain Area Ronald McDonald House about the possibility of doing a science engagement activity there and received a prompt and very positive response. After talking with their hospitality manager, an evening activity at the Ronald McDonald House sounded like a great fit—an incredible opportunity for me and my kids to engage with our community, and hopefully a chance to create an enjoyable activity for the families there.

I am a graduate student studying avian conservation ecology and, as such, decided to plan an evening involving several stations of hands-on activities focused on birds. Each activity had an underlying learning objective taught through play. For example, we had bird bingo to learn about bird diversity, bird memory to learn about sexual dimorphism, and a bird beak activity to learn about form and function. My colleagues joined me and helped run each station.

Rather than all gathering at once, the dynamics of an evening activity at the Ronald McDonald House were such that families would join the activity when they could, so we kept things flexible and let participants join any station that grabbed their interest. The families were incredibly kind and seemed to really enjoy the hands-on nature of the activities and learning about birds. I had a wonderful evening and was very pleased with how the activity went. Around 15 individuals attended, and they were kind, appreciative, and engaged. I would highly encourage future STEM ambassadors and others interested in community outreach to consider the Ronald McDonald House as an option for engagement activities.

My family and I were surrounded by so much love and support from our friends, neighbors, and community during my husband’s illness. Designing and carrying out an activity at the Ronald McDonald House felt like a small way to pay forward some of the support shown to us to others in our community going through a health battle. I am incredibly grateful to the Ronald McDonald House for allowing us to have an activity there, and especially grateful to all the kind participants who helped us feel welcome and appreciated. I would also like to thank the STEMAP director Andrew George for all his help and support at each stage of this project. STEMAP was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn about public engagement, and I would highly recommend it to others at the University. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my colleagues and children for attending and helping carry out this activity.