Mentoring and Outreach
We love getting involved in educational programs locally in our communities and in programs across the globe. Our goal is to get people of all ages excited about science, show its value for our everyday lives, and give back to our community through hands-on engagement.
Hands-On Research in Complex Systems
Eva-Maria Collins has participated in 3 schools for this program, which aims to introduce graduate students and young faculty from developing countries to table-top scientific research on problems at the frontiers of science. Experiments on physical, chemical, and biological systems are conducted with modern yet inexpensive digital instrumentation, and the laboratory work is complemented by mathematical modeling and data analysis using computation.
Richard Rubin Program
Eva-Maria Collins is an active mentor for the Richard Rubin program, which aims to advance the academic, interpersonal, social, and professional success of underrepresented or first generation students at Swarthmore College. A mentor supplements academic advising by helping students learn how to navigate the College – such as connecting with faculty, accessing academic support, balancing social and academic demands, overcoming some of the social and psychological barriers they might encounter, and understanding the transition issues associated with leaving home and starting college
Student Spaceflight Experiments Program
The SSEP enables school students across the country to design and propose real microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit – initially aboard the final flights of the Space Shuttle, and now on the International Space Station (ISS). We worked with students from Vista Magnet Middle School to develop their experiment to answer the question ‘Can planarians regenerate while in microgravity through the use of stem cells?’ – The outcomes of this study have been published, given the students the unique opportunity to work like a real scientist: taking the project all the way from hypothesis to publication (Hagstrom, Bartee & Collins, 2018)
Skype-a-Scientist
Skype a scientist is a wonderful program connecting practicing scientists with classrooms (and neighborhoods) across the globe. Interested scientists sign up for the program and are matched with classrooms interested in talking to scientists from a particular discipline. Interactions range from a single skype session to semester long engagements with the same class. Graduate student Tapan Goel has been participating in the program for the past two years and taught students in Springfield, MO and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, about the regenerative capabilities of Hydra.