On Wednesday evening, we hosted the fourth installment of the monthly Science Online NYC (SoNYC) discussion series. The topic for debate this month was “Reaching the niches: connecting underrepresented groups with science” and the panel featured:
• Khadijah Britton: Founder of BetterBio, a nonprofit focused on helping minority communities connect with science.
• Meghan Groome: Director of the NY Academy of Science’s K-12 Education and Science & the City programs.
• Dhiraj Murthy: An assistant professor at Bowdoin College, where he studies the use of social media tools within minority communities.
• Nancy Parmalee: A graduate student at Columbia University.
• Daniel Colón Ramos: Director of CienciaPR, a group dedicated to promoting scientific collaborations and literacy in Puerto Rico.
• Bernice Rumala: Co-chair of Rockefeller University’s Achieving Successful and Productive Academic Research Careers (SPARC) initiative.
As is our usual format, following short introductory talks from the panelists, we invited attendees present in person at Rockefeller University or watching online to take part in a wider discussion.
To read what people on Twitter were saying about the event, check out our Storify of tweets at the bottom of this post.
Photos
Have been added to our Facebook page. Do let us know if you’d like us to link to any of yours.
Live-streaming and video archiving
We do also live-stream each SoNYC event to give as many people as possible the chance to take part in the debate. Check out our livestream channel where the archives of the first two meetings are currently hosted.
Of Schemes and Memes blog posts around the themes of the 4th #sonyc
To complement this SoNYC discussion, on Of Schemes and Memes we have been delving into the world of minority scientists. Our first installment from Jeanne Garbarino, a Postdoc at Rockefeller University, considered some of the underrepresented groups within science. In our second installment, Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer discussed her role as the vice-director of Ciencia Puerto Rico, a non-profit, grassroots organization that promotes science, research and scientific literacy in Puerto Rico. Our third post was from Subhra Priyadarshini, editor of Nature Publishing Group’s India portal who talked about life for scientists in India. In our forth post we heard from Satoshi Uchiyama, a Japanese researcher working abroad, as he details his career hurdles and visa issues. In our last post, we heard from Amanda Adeleye, a medical student who reveals that the glamorous world of cheerleading can mix with science.
Other blog posts about #sonyc 4
Do let us know if you blog about the event and we’ll include a round-up of links here.
Finding out more
The next event will be held in September and will focus on Enhanced eBooks & BookApps: the Promise and Perils. Keep an eye on the SoNYC twitter account for more details and/or watch the #sonyc hashtag.
If you have a suggestion for a future panel or would be interested in sponsoring one of the events, please get in touch.
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