Outreach
The Tullman-Ercek lab has always been heavily involved in outreach activities including science festivals, science café lectures, hands-on museum activities, K-12 classroom activities, REU student hosting, and more.
Danielle has participated in many events to communicate the benefits of synthetic biology research to the general public, including booths at city-wide science festivals, art exhibits, ethics talks, and discussions at local theaters that dovetail with themes in plays and movies. She has also served on Congressman Bill Foster’s science council. Danielle and the lab often serve on panels and give lab tours for K-12 students interested in science for organizations such as Career Day for Girls program, Women in Science and Engineering Research at NU, and local high schools.
Our group members have participated in K-12 educational activities as part of Science Club and other Science in Society programs, serve as judges of science fairs, and lead tours for visiting school groups and teachers as well as Science in your Community Center. Science Club is an after-school STEM program that works with underserved K-12 children in the city of Chicago. Science In your Community Center (SICC) is an outreach program started with EvanSTEM that aims to bring monthly STEM activities to underrepresented 6th-8th grade students from Evanston’s Fifth Ward. Group members also engage members of public by contributing as editors or writers to online publications such as NU’s Helix.
In addition to these events, Danielle and several lab members contribute regularly to the Engineering Biology Research Consortium’s various efforts around science policy and education/outreach and to their roadmapping workshops. Danielle also led the Education and Outreach efforts for several years. During this time, she created collections of online synthetic biology training resources and curriculum materials for educators and connected to social media content creators to create synthetic biology-themed episodes. Check out Danielle’s collaboration with Tumble Science Podcast for Kids to make “Hamsters vs Bacteria”, a podcast that highlights her efforts to engineer protein secretion systems in bacteria!
If you are interested in learning more about any of the DTE lab’s outreach activities,contact us. We are always looking out for new outreach opportunities.