because science is fundamental in the 21st century
Our mission is to give the people a voice who are working on making the world better using evidence. With the twitter rocur account @SfPRocur we simply hand over the mic!
Email us who you are and what you want to tweet about to info@scienceforprogress.eu! We will check if it's a good fit!
Dr. Susan Leemburg is a neuroscientist from the Netherlands who lives in Switzerland. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Zurich, she is currently looking for a new position in academic research.
Susan is a volunteer with Science for Progress, and she has her own project Highlighter to showcase women in STEM in Switzerland. She also is passionate about informing people about animal experiments, and about do-it-yourself techniques in science research.
During her curation, Susan will be tweeting from San Diego, where she is visiting “Neuroscience”, the annual conference of the “Society for Neuroscience” (SfN) – the biggest neuroscience conference in the world, with over 30 000 attendees. She will tell us which topics got her excited at the conference. Other topics will be women in science, and animal experiments. And finally she wants to talk about DIY science/citizen science and how it’s not only just fun, but can be used to make the world better as well.
Dr. Katharina Hennig recently received her PhD in physics in Grenoble, France. Her thesis focused on understanding the mechanics of cell migration. Moving through your body is a critical function of cells, for example during immune responses, and development.
Katha is convinced that even the smallest effort in sharing experiences, facts and advances in science with a broader audience can foster trust and excitement and might ultimately lead to a better reputation of research. This is why she uses her twitter account to share her experiences as a scientist, and to communicate science to a broader audience. She further illustrates biological processes and writes science-related stories which she publishes on online blogs and collect on her own website.
Gwen Frank has been a curator, before. This week, she returns to report from the Open Access Week!
The Open Access Week is an event series by OpenAIRE and FOSTER, who are giving webinars and tutorials all week long!
Check out the whole program for the Open Science Week!
Gwen Franck is a ‘Jack of all Trades’ for Open Science. From Ghent, Belgium, she works with EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries), partnering in OpenAIRE and FOSTER. She curates the related twitter accounts @openaire_eu and @fosterscience. She holds a masters degree in Medieval History and Political Sciences. Gwen is specifically interested in creating tailor-made materials and events in order to reach all researchers, not only those already very familiar with Open Science tools and workflows.
Valerie Bentivegna studied bioscience engineering, and almost finished her PhD in cancer research. Born in the USA, she grew up in Belgium and studied in France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Scotland. She believes that policies should be science based, and that science is important for the advancement of society. Scientists should get off of their high tower and speak to the public. She herself loves finding creative and innovative ways to engage young and adult audiences with STEM subjects. And she loves it more than research.
Alex Fitzpatrick, MSc FSA Scot, is a PhD student in zooarchaeology. She studies the animal remains from the Covesea Caves (“The Covesea Caves Project”), a series of later prehistoric sites in Scotland. These sites may be places of funerary and ritual importance. She is further interested in science communication, specifically with the general public.
Her science communication efforts are found in her weekly blog, Animal Archaeology, and in a podcast about zooarchaeology called “ArchaeoAnimals” which she co-hosts.
“Science is a human endowment. It belongs to all of us, and should be accessible to all of us, physically and intellectually”
Monica Gonzalez-Marquez develops evidence-based methods to teach science reading skills as a staff researcher at Aachen University (Germany). She says that while every university has a writing center of some sort, almost no attention is paid to reading. However, writing is an exercise in imitation: one cannot write well about something one does not understand. Monica thinks that this is at the heart of the problem with the current worldwide epidemic of plagiarism, and why professors continuously complain about their students’ lack of writing skills. To solve this problem, Monica wants to establish reading and interpretation of scientific texts as a core part of the scientific curriculum for students.
M.Sc. Ann-Charlott Schneider is a PhD candidate in immunology at the University Hospital of Cologne, in Germany. She works to make science accessible for everyone. To communicate science she participates in science slams. In addition, she is writes on her blog “So Protective“.
During her curation she wants to share insights into her experiences in the science world. She will talk about her participation at famelab, and about science slams. But she also wants to talk about what it means to her to be a first generation university student. Another topic she may address, is animal experimentation.
“Communication starts with listening.”
Martine Oudenhoven received her Masters degree in biology and recently became communication adviser for Nikhef, the National Institute for Subatomic Physics in the Netherlands.
She is involved in Open Science through her work on a FOSTER project, organising an Open Science Cafe in Athens in September 2017.
You can organise your own Open Science Cafe with this Open Science Cafe Kit!
Dr. Susan Leemburg is a neuroscientist from the Netherlands who now lives in Switzerland. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Zurich, she is currently looking for a new position in academic research. In the meanwhile she is working part time at the laboratory animal services center of the University of Zurich. So, during one half of the week Susan helps to make sure that everything is in place for researchers to do the best science possible. During the other half of the week she ‘writes stuff’ (grants, papers, job applications) and tries to figure out how brain activity predicts recovery after stroke.
Dr. Nuno Henrique Franco is Assistant Researcher at the Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, i3S (Institute for Investigation and Innovation in Health) at the University of Porto, Portugal. His research focuses on laboratory animal welfare, along with ethical, legal, social and scientific issues in animal research. His research interests also include translational science, science communication and education. In 2013, he received the UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year Award.