Covering the people, projects and phenomena of citizen science
Blog: Citizen Science Projects, People, and Perspectives
The Citizen Science Movement: Just Add Cheerleaders
By Lily Bui, Jun 12, 2012
Darlene Cavalier, founder, SciStarter
While you may know her as the founder of our beloved SciStarter, Darlene Cavalier also spearheads a unique organization called Science Cheerleader, a sister site that promotes science literacy, citizen science, and science policy with the help of scientists and engineers who just happen to be current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders!
Darlene was recently featured on StoryCollider, a podcast (which you should also subscribe to!) that promotes science through storytelling. Below, you can listen to Darlene’s personal account about the inspiration for Science Cheerleader and how it launched SciStarter as well as the growth of the citizen scientist community as a whole.
As citizen scientists, we’re all cheerleaders for science to some degree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to stay on the sidelines.
Although she holds dual non-science bachelors’ degrees in International Studies and Spanish from the University of California Irvine, Lily has long harbored a proclivity for the sciences. A daughter of an engineer and an accountant who also happen to be a photographer and musician, respectively, Lily grew up on the nexus between science and art. Lily has worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.; served a year in AmeriCorps in Montgomery County, Maryland; worked for a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter in California; and performed across the U.S. as a touring musician. She currently works with WGBH-TV Boston and Public Radio Exchange (PRX) in Cambridge. In her spare time, she thinks of cheesy science puns (mostly to entertain herself). // Tweets @dangerbui
