Dear STEM Graduate Students,

My name is Nichole Bennett. I'm a doctoral student in science communication at the University of Texas at Austin. My mentor (Dr. Anthony Dudo, UTexas) and I are preparing to conduct interviews investigating how graduate students in STEM fields make sense of public engagement and their sense of belonging in academic spaces. This research project is being supported by The Rita Allen Foundation.

We are looking to interview graduate students in any STEM field that have participated in public engagement of any form. We use the National Science Foundation’s definition of STEM fields,  which includes mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, computer and information sciences, and the social and behavioral sciences – psychology, economics, sociology, and political science. We define public engagement as any information exchange which is designed to engage the targeted audience in STEM. If you are not sure if you meet these requirements and are interested in participating, feel free to email me, and we can sort it out. 

If you meet these requirements, we’re hoping that you’re willing to participate in a zoom or phone interview. Our project seeks to describe the key themes of how graduate students in STEM fields talk about public engagement; to describe key themes of how graduate students in STEM fields describe the interaction between public engagement and their sense of belonging, and to identify/describe characteristics of STEM graduate students that may be unique to their relationship with public engagement. We expect the interviews to last from an hour to an hour and a half. We believe that your experiences and expertise should be represented within our analysis. 

Your time is valuable to us, so we would like to offer a $50 stipend for the interview. We also have a portion of our budget set aside for any access needs you may have (e.g. screen reader support, ASL interpretation, childcare, etc.).  

Thank you in advance for your help. We hope that this research will help shed light on the unique opportunities and barriers faced by STEM graduate students that participate in public engagement and inform systems-level change in widening the circle of human concern in STEM spaces. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

We look forward to hearing from you and scheduling a time to chat over zoom or on the phone. If you know of others that may be interested in joining, feel free to forward this email to them. 

Nichole