OUTREACH & SERVICE PROJECTS
We have a leadership role or are centrally involved in multiple community outreach and engagement projects. Undergraduate and graduate students in our lab have many opportunities to take part in these projects, with some examples described below.
Iowa City Science Booster Club. The nationally recognized Iowa City Science Booster Club uses informal science education to increase community scientific literacy. One of the most exciting components of the Iowa City Science Booster Club is that many key elements of the program, from event organization to our social media presence, are led by graduate students. We have partnered with national advocacy organizations like Families Fighting Flu to develop virtual activities like this online game that are freely available to anyone with access to the Internet. We gratefully acknowledge generous financial support from a variety of organizations, including but not limited to the National Science Foundation, Integrated DNA Technologies, and the Carver Charitable Trust.
Iowa City Darwin Day. Many members of the lab are involved in leading the annual Iowa City Darwin Day celebration. This yearly event brings together hundreds of people from across Iowa City and beyond to celebrate science and its accomplishments with the world's best evolutionary scientists as well as artists, poets, musicians, and others engaged in relevant work.
Proceedings B Editorial Team. Maurine is the first-ever Preprint Editor for Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the Royal Society of London's flagship biological journal. She heads a team comprised of early-career scientists from around the world, who work together to identify preprints posted on bioRxiv that might be suitable for consideration for publication in Proceedings B, and then solicit their submission. Check out a preprint-team authored paper describing the process and the team here!