Time Scavengers

Jen here –

Part of my new job is working on the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded FOSSIL Project that has created a social community that shares resources, help, and more on paleontology related ideas (myfossil.org). Every few years the funding group, Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) has a Principal Investigator (PI) meeting, to bring all of the project leaders together to share updates and brainstorm new ideas. I was selected as the FOSSIL Project representative to attend the event. This involved putting together a poster summarizing our project and what has happened over the past four years the project has been operating. I also included where we hoped to be heading in the future as we are working to make the platforms more community driven.

This was my first real dive into NSF. I had submitted several postdoctoral fellowships to NSF but never really engaged with program officers outside of emails or been in the audience of talks by different NSF staff members. The first day was primarily listening to different NSF staff explain and explore the various outlets of funding through NSF, the different programs to apply for funding, and the importance of the annual report. I took a considerable amount of notes because as an early career professional, it’s likely I will need to know some of these people and programs as I move forward in my career.

There were breakout sessions where we could explore specific things in more detail. The first session I attended was on identifying informal places where people have some time to engage in science content. There was a brief introduction to different projects going on right now and then we spent much of the remaining time in small group discussions. We shared our own experiences with conceptualizing and implementing programs in different places and then discussed other spaces where we could introduce people to science. Some of these include: sporting events, airports, bus stations, and much more! Places where people go on a regular basis that we could introduce some brief content into. The next session I attended was on three key components: identity, interest, and engagement. There was a recent task force that really dove into these three topics and interviewed members of the research field to get at the components from all viewpoints. If you are interested in learning more head to: Informal Science.

There was a poster session where we could explore the other AISL projects and network with potential collaborators. It was split into two sessions but I didn’t feel this was very effective because the rooms were sort of spread out and no one seemed to really stick to the schedule. So, I didn’t get to interact with as many people as I was hoping to but those that I did engage with were interested in the program and were very friendly. The final day of the event included a morning filled with small group discussions on broadening participation in STEM. I had a really interesting small group and we had a lot of interesting conversations about our projects and experiences.

Overall, this was a greatly informative experience for me. It was sort of a last minute trip but I really made the most of it and left with a lot of knowledge. I think getting to meet and listen to some of the NSF program officers really helped personalize them. It’s difficult sending proposals into the internet void and only having a few interactions with a staff member. Everyone I listened to and interacted with was very eager to help others succeed.