Scientific Citizenship: Redefining Science Education in a Divided World

Academia is facing historic challenges. As national leaders attack and politicize our institutions, the public continues to lose faith in science as a force for good. Now more than ever scientists need to be prepared to navigate the social complexity of their work. Academic leaders, funders, and students recognize this challenge and are demanding change. Yet academia is slow to innovate. Since 2020, Harvard’s Scientific Citizenship Initiative (SCi) has been paving the way for a paradigm shift that prepares scientific leaders by integrating skills for civic engagement into STEM graduate training. This talk will delve into SCi’s innovative training and experiential learning programs and aim to inspire a reimagined approach to scientific training.

Join the Bovay Program in the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering for a talk by Dr. Daniel Pomeroy, Co-Director of the Scientific Citizenship Initiative at the Harvard Medical School.

SCi is a lab that develops new curriculum and experiential learning opportunities for STEM graduate students. The lab creates, tests, and exports innovative educational programs to enhance professional careers and elevate the depth and degree of meaningful interactions between STEM practitioners and society. Dr. Pomeroy will speak about SCi’s vision of scientific citizenship, and how their innovative simulation-based pedagogy engages students in thinking about ethical and civic issues in science and technology, from gene editing to geoengineering.

The talk is free and open to all.

For interested faculty, postdocs, and graduate students, there will be a brown bag discussion with Dr. Pomeroy on March 15 at 12:00 noon. Register here: https://bit.ly/Pomeroy24