Scientists-at-Large
Scientists-at-Large (SAL) is a multi-purpose program used as a teaching and recruitment tool.
The program currently has the following academic and industry collaborators:
- Brookings School District
- Sioux Falls School District
- Kiewit Luminarium (Omaha, Nebraska) in collaboration with Dr. Heiberger
- Washington Pavilion
- Certain Trial Colleges (in collaboration with Dr. Brandis)
- Community colleges (in neighboring states)
What is the benefit of the Scientists-at-Large program?
Scientists-at-Large aim to demystify science, harnessing the inherent curiosity and interest in learning about how “things work", through hands on experiments.
Why participate and how does SAL benefit society?
The program does the following:
- Teaches future educators how to teach simple science experiments.
- A recruitment tool for future undergraduates and graduate students by partnering industry and academic partners
Dr. Willand-Charnley’s Prior Experience
Dr. Willand-Charnley is an applied interdisciplinary organic glyco-cancer immunologist. They received their B.S. at Creighton University and their Ph.D. (in chemistry) at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) under the direction of professor Patrick Dassault. They went on to become a NIH NIGMS Institutional Research and Academic Career Award fellow at Stanford University, under the direction of Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, part of the goal, in addition to their post-doctoral research training, was to communicate science and increase recruitment. Additionally, they were also a South Dakota EPSCoR "Communicating Science to the Public" fellow in which they further refined their skills to communicate complex science.
In addition, during their time at both the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University they were a Bay Area Scientist in Schools (BASIS), where scientists visited classrooms and performed hands on experiments in K-5 classrooms throughout the Bay Area. They also spearheaded the initial development of the K-5 outreach program that became integrated into Stanford University’s Inspiring Future Scientist (IFS) program. They worked with Dr. Schwartz-Poehlmann to implement this component of the program.
