Other Activities

Outreach & Engagement

I got interested in bringing research outside the academy during my PhD at UCL, and it’s stayed part of how I work since.

Where it started (UCL, 2013–2015)

Public communication of my work was engrained in my academic values at University College London, where I was offered many opportunities to think about outreach and engagement. For example, I represented “The Thing Is” — a public engagement stand at London’s Natural History Museum, where I used prosthetic devices on loan from the Wellcome Collection to talk with visitors about technological design. I was also invited to perform in a Bright Club stand-up comedy night, hosted at the London Transport Museum.

Continuing at RPI

That commitment — take the research to people who aren’t going to read the journal article — has carried through since my arrival at RPI. I gave a public talk, “Monuments of Care: A Discussion About Infrastructures and Maintenance,” at the Opalka Gallery’s In-Faux-Structure exhibit in 2019, and wrote a piece for The Conversation on Arecibo’s collapse that reached over 100,000 readers. I’ve also spoken with school groups through the Teen Science Café, and been interviewed for two podcasts: People’s Science and People and Things. I am always delighted at an opportunity to speak to young audiences in particular!