The Center for Public Engagement with Science (PEWS) is grateful for the hard work, creativity, and dedication of our 2024-2025 fellows! These graduate students have made a tremendous impact on our organization, and we can’t wait to see what they do next. Read on to hear their reflections from this past year, and learn more about PEWS internships and fellowships here!
Mythili Emani – Web and Media Coordinator
After a super fun year as PEWS’ Web and Media Coordinator, my time with this awesome organization is wrapping up this week. It’s been incredibly cool to work behind the scenes crafting web pages and social media posts for PEWS activities. I hope to continue being a part of the community and help out as well as participate whenever I can! Thanks to Kate Nicole at PEWS for making this such a great experience – you’re doing really important work, and it’s been awesome being part of it!
Luke Howard – Science Harvest Fellow
I had the joy of running Science Harvest at the Northside Farmer’s market during my first year here at UC as a PhD student! Getting to know the “regulars” – the kiddos who stop by month after month to learn a little something about chemistry, physics, geology, or any other STEM subject has been a delight.
Not only did they learn something from me every month – whether it’s how acids and bases interact, how boats float, or why animal fossilize – but I also learned a lot from them. How to run an effective table for kids of all sizes, ages, and interests was a big learning experience.
I applied for this position because I believe that one of the most important hats a scientist wears is the outreach hat. Scientific literacy in the public is good for the individual, society, and science itself. Helping kids nurture their curiosity helps bring in the next generation of scientists and helps develop a healthier public.
Science Harvest wasn’t only a once-a-month activity to me. I was able to develop relationships with members of the Northside neighborhood, making my transition into Cincinnati easier. It also allowed me to think about what other outreach activities I wanted to participate in. PEWS also allowed me to expand my work to the local Clifton library branch in an upcoming outreach event in collaboration with the library system.
I look forward to more collaborations with PEWS and community organizations through the rest of my PhD program.
Stephanie Lam – Sustainability Fellow
As the PEWS graduate sustainability fellow for the academic year of 24-25, I had the privilege to work with my intern peers and the PEWS post-doc. There were many opportunities and moving parts of being a part of PEWS and a sustainability fellow that helped support the goals of PEWS. I was most excited about the responsiveness of our working group to meet an identified need that students and faculty addressed. Sustainability-inclined graduate students were concerned about not having a graduate student sustainability community. Sometimes, they are the only person working on sustainability-related topics in their program. An initial event was hosted to invite sustainability-inclined graduate students to discuss their overall needs and desires. From hosting this event, another need was reported. There was a specific need for inter-departmental crediting for coursework outside graduate students’ home departments. Students were seeking opportunities for coursework outside of their field and having those credits counted for degree completion.
Two things were identified from the ongoing communication:
1. Some community group may need to be cultivated
2. There was a desire for inter-disciplinary course engagement and crediting
Fortunately, the two things would create a natural space to build community and networks among sustainability-inclined graduate students. However, one of the concerns would need to involve administrators because of its institutional nature.
Stemming from the community-building concern identified, we organized opportunities to attend events to connect sustainability-inclined graduate students to each other and with local sustainability-inclined organizations, such as the Cincinnati Civic Garden Center.
To address the inter-disciplinary course crediting concern, this desire was shared with the graduate college deans at the end of the Spring semester and was well received. Although my term has ended as a PEWS graduate sustainability fellow, the continuation of this advocacy has not, and the work ongoing.
Overall, being a PEWS sustainability fellow positioned me as a bridge builder, and I had the opportunity to practice and live out community psychology values. Specifically, I came with the value that sustainability is grounded and rooted in community, and I felt that the work I had contributed as a sustainability fellow was truly aligned. As a community psychologist in training, being a part of an enabling and supportive center allowed for responsiveness to occur. As a team, we listened to the concerns of our fellow university peers, and we worked on solutions while communicating and consulting on how the concerns were being addressed.