Description of course and prerequisites

This graduate course is designed to teach ideation and communication skills on creating context-aware experimental designs, interdisciplinary writing, building community engagement in research, writing for scientific-based policy, and pedagogical design for situating scientific education in social equity contexts. This course is built around the Microbes and Social Equity working group’s 2022 summer symposium” Developing transformative research skills.”. Students will attend the talks, participate in meeting working groups, and discuss research with plenary speakers, all while drafting your research designs or writing outputs. Students will receive feedback on their ideas from the instructor, as well as from symposium speakers and attendees. Symposium description: To understand a microbiome, you must learn about the bustling community of microorganisms and the complex ecosystems they live in, because one cannot exist without the other. So, too, does microbiome research rely on understanding the lives and ecology of humans, because there is no aspect of human life which does not involve microbes in some way. To become better microbiome researchers, we must understand social and environmental contexts which affect humans and, in many cases, prevent them from making choices which result in beneficial microbial exposures. This symposium will focus on developing research skills to create transformative research, including context-aware experimental designs, engaging community stakeholders as research partners, writing transdisciplinary papers, translating research into policy, and creating curriculum which melds microbes and social equity.

” Developing transformative research skills“

July 18 – 22, 2022. Registration is free, and required for each session individually.

Format: virtual meeting, Zoom platform.

Detailed program information can be found here.