Synthetic biology is still a poorly understood tool by the public at large and even students. Working at NASA, our team had the additional responsibility of educating Agency officials and other members of the federal government. To this end, our outreach this summer included participation in the following events.
Outreach Events
Here are some of the outreach events we conducted this year.
Held a synthetic biology booth at the Bay Area Maker Faire. (May 17th, 2014)
Hosted a visit by the UCSF-UC Berkeley iGEM team to NASA. (June 13th, 2014)
Taught children about biology through strawberry DNA extraction at World Maker Faire in New York. (Sept 20th, 2014)
We presented our project to California Academy of Science scientists and public engagement personnel, seen posing with us here under the Academy's T-Rex! (Aug 20th, 2014)
Our team met with and presented to NASA Ames Research Center Director and team sponsor Pete Worden. (June 20th, 2014)
We presented our project to and engaged with Jim Head, distinguished Prof. of Geological Sciences and Mars researcher from Brown University. Here, Prof. Head feels one our biomaterial samples. (July 21st, 2014)
Our team poses with Ellen Stofan, NASA Chief Scientist after having presented our work to her and given her a tour of our lab. (July 22nd, 2014)
Our team presented to California Congressman Ami Bera about our work in synthetic biology. (Aug 27th, 2014)
Gave a synthetic biology presentation at Stanford's high school Bioengineering Bootcamp. (July 24th, 2014)
Presented to our sponsors at DNA2.0. (Aug 1st, 2014)
Taught synthetic biology at booth in the World Maker Faire, New York. (Sept 20th, 2014)
Met with Margaret D. Lowman or tree climbing "Canopy Meg," Chief of Science and Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences. (Aug 20th, 2014)
Pete Worden, NASA Ames Research Center Director and team sponsor is seen here approving our team's wasp wrangling expedition. (June 20th, 2014)
Our team posing with Jim Head during his visit to our lab. (July 21st, 2014)
We participated in the Northern California iGEM Meetup hosted by the UCSC iGEM team. In this photo, we're sharing our project with UCSC team members. (Aug 15th, 2014)
A small portion of our team posing with Congressman Ami Bera after having given him a tour of our lab and answered his questions about synthetic biology. This was particularly exciting as he is on the House Science Committee and an MD. (Aug 27th, 2014)
Additional Outreach
In addition to some of the outreach documented above, our team was also involved in sharing idea about synthetic biology through the following outlets:
● Brown University's 250th open house (Sept 27th, 2014)
● NASA Ames 75th anniversary open house (Oct 18th, 2014)
● Contributions to the Paris-Bettencourt iGEM Newsletter
People Hosted
We were honored with the opportunity to host the following individuals in our lab at NASA Ames, some of whom are pictured above.
● Congressman Ami Bera of California’s 7th Congressional District from the U.S. House of Representatives
● NASA Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden
● NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan
● NASA Chief Technologist David Miller and staff
● Dr. Barry Groves, Superintendent of Mountain View/Los Altos School District and his staff.
● Professional explorer, educator, and environmental advocate Josh Bernstein.
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