AUSTIN, TEX -- AAAS is pleased to announce the selection of the 2018-19 Public Engagement Fellows. These 15 food and water security researchers are the third cohort of the AAAS Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute for Public Engagement with Science. They have all demonstrated leadership and excellence in their research careers, and interest in promoting meaningful dialogue between science and society. Future cohorts will focus on other areas of science, particularly topics with a science-society nexus and scholarship in related communication research.
A reception is being held on Thursday, February 15 at 4:00 pm at AAAS Annual Meeting in Austin to celebrate and welcome the new AAAS Public Engagement Fellows. New AAAS Public Engagement Fellows attending the reception include Wendy Jepson, Alexis Racelis, Laura Schmitt Olabisi, Kirsten Schwarz, and Pei Xu. Several AAAS Public Engagement Fellows from the 2016-17 cohort, focused on climate change, will also attend the reception, including Jerry Glover and Jessica Hellmann.
The new AAAS Public Engagement Fellows will convene in June 2018 at AAAS headquarters in Washington, DC for a week of intensive public engagement and science communication training, networking, and public engagement plan development. After the training, AAAS Public Engagement Fellows will return to their institutions with resources and connections to develop and implement public engagement activities, opportunities for training other scientists in their communities, and increased capacity for public engagement leadership. AAAS staff will provide ongoing support and continuing professional development throughout their fellowship year.
The 2018-2019 AAAS Public Engagement Fellows are as follows; a short biography for each Fellow is attached:
AAAS is highly encouraged by the interest in the AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute. The 15 AAAS Public Engagement Fellows selected, and the many others who applied, demonstrate clear commitment from scientists and researchers within the water and food security research community to engage the public on many critical issues. The AAAS Public Engagement Fellows program, now in its third year, continues to build on the long-standing commitment of AAAS to science communication and public engagement through its support of these Fellows.
The Leshner Leadership Institute is wholly supported by philanthropic donations. The Institute is managed by the AAAS Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology, established in 2004 by Alan I. Leshner, now Chief Executive Officer Emeritus of AAAS.
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About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science as well as Science Translational Medicine , Science Signaling , and a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances . AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, http://www.eurekalert.org , the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS. See http://www.aaas.org .
AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, dedicated to "Advancing science ? Serving society."
Profiles of the AAAS Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute 2018-2019 Public Engagement Fellows Food and Water Security Cohort