From Research to Practice

For Leanna Kalinowski, the path to civic science started in a neuroscience lab, where she was studying the effects of methylphenidate (also known by its brand name Ritalin) on the brain. After publishing findings in scientific journals and presenting them at conferences, she wanted to do more.

“I was sitting on all these results, but I'm not talking to anyone with ADHD. I'm not talking to clinicians about this work. I'm not talking to any policy makers about this work. I am literally just kind of keeping this in a bubble,” Kalinowski said.

Eager to bridge this disconnect, she left the lab and worked in science policy with the Scholars Strategy Network and National Science Policy Network while doing science outreach work in elementary schools. All the while, she pondered the bigger picture of civic science – ensuring all people are included in or benefit from the process and products of science.

Now as a Neuromatch Civic Science Fellow with support from The Kavli Foundation and Dana Foundation, Kalinowski studies and implements strategies to encourage computational scientists to incorporate civic science into their research.

Neuromatch is an organization whose mission is to accelerate scientific innovation by facilitating inclusive, collaborative, and global participation in the computational sciences. The Kavli Foundation has supported Neuromatch programs since 2020, such as Neuromatch Academy’s computational neuroscience and deep learning courses.

“We were so excited for the opportunity to host a Civic Science Fellow; it clearly aligned with Neuromatch's focus on open science and accessible education. The work Leanna has been doing will have a lasting impact on our cohorts of Academy students and teaching assistants. Finding ways to train scientists early in civic science practices is integral to making it a foundational part of their future work. Neuromatch works to bring our community into every aspect of what we do, and we think scientific research should be the same,” said Courtney Dean, program director at Neuromatch.

As part of her fellowship Kalinowski is surveying scientists to ascertain their interests and awareness around civic science broadly, including how they’re applying trainings they’ve already received, which will inform her work designing new trainings and workshops for early career researchers.

In her work, Kalinowski observes how scientists doing basic research in particular wrestle with the impact of their work and how to most effectively involve the public, where future applications or clinical translation is often used a tool to make research relevant.

“I've worked with a lot of basic scientists who feel like in order to have an impact on the world that they need to leave basic science,” she said. “Especially in previous roles in training people in science policy, people working in the basic sciences were reluctant to talk about their own work, because they didn't want to make false promises about the work they're doing.”

For her part, as a former bench scientist who left the lab to pursue her interests in civic science, Kalinowski sees the interconnectedness and possibilities of further interdisciplinary work between these research communities.

“We still need bench scientists. We still need clinical scientists. We still need policymakers. We still need people working in those areas. Not everyone can leave their bench job like me, because then we won't be advancing basic science anymore. The key is for everyone to be more open and collaborative.”

Her work as a Civic Science Fellow is a step in that direction.