Four Highlights from the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series

Over my 12 month fellowship, I had the opportunity to watch all 35 hours of event recordings on the NASA Cit Sci Leaders series. For my final post as AAPS fellow, I want to share four highlights from the series that shaped how I approach my own project, to inspire you to explore the series and see what resonates most with you and your project. 

Highlight 1: Equity isn’t an outcome, it’s part of project design

Watch ????: Keynote, Raj Pandya Keynote: Discovery, Learning, Equity and Action: Unleashing the Power of Citizen Science

Of all the great things Dr. Raj Pandya covered in his keynote, what resonated with me most was his point that equity isn’t something we tack on as an afterthought or an outcome, it’s something we have to design for from the start. Good design benefits everyone, and lowering barriers to access isn’t just about being fair, it makes our science and learning stronger. 

I also appreciated his practical guidance on leading projects. Even though this keynote is five years old, Raj’s takeaways of iterating and involving feel just as relevant to me today: 

• Project design is an iterative process, you don’t have to get it right all at once.
• You don’t have to design your project alone, you can and should involve your participants in shaping it.

As a grad student leading a citizen science project, these lessons were reassuring. I don’t need to have all the answers or anticipate every barrier, but Raj’s keynote reminds me of the power in listening, involving, and continuing to iterate. 

Highlight 2: Defining goals to strengthen both your science and community

Watch ????: Keynote, Dr. Julia Parrish: Does Knowing the People Make the Science Better? COASST, Climate Change, and COVID-19

Julia Parrish’s 2020 keynote inspired me to reflect on Redshift Wrangler’s goals beyond science, too. Many of our volunteers are motivated not just by contributing to our science, but also by curiosity, learning spectroscopy (the study of light), and asking their own questions. Seeing how COASST balances science with education and community showed me how those goals can reinforce each other.

Julia’s three key takeaways were simple but powerful:

• know your science,
• know your participants,
• and use each to extend the other. 

Her final point has really stuck with me: relationships with volunteers don’t just support the science, they can actually make the science better.

Highlight 3: Measuring success in empowerment, not just numbers

Watch ????: How communication can help you reach the audience you want: communicating for inclusion (Speaker: Rackeb Tesfaye)

Rackeb Tesfaye’s talk made me think about what success means in citizen science, not just for participants, but for the quality and impact of the science itself. She challenged us to think beyond traditional measures like number of classifications, participants, and papers published, and to ask whether people on our projects feel a sense of belonging, gain new knowledge and confidence, or have more control over decisions that affect them. 

When people feel ownership and belonging, they stay engaged longer and give more thoughtful input, and when science is co-created with the people and communities impacted, the data are more accurate and scientifically useful, something we can see clearly in fields like medicine. In medical research, data quality improves when patients are closely involved in the research process; their lived expertise helps identify the right questions to ask and how to design better protocols. Citizen science works in similar ways: having diverse participation broadens the range of perspectives on our data and leads to stronger science and more interesting results. 

So what can we do as project leaders and researchers? Rackeb gave me some great ideas for how to get started: 

1. Redefine your metrics of success: in addition to traditional outputs, consider measuring outcomes like participant retention, sense of belonging, and empowerment to determine the strength and longevity of your project.
2. Co-create with communities: invite people most impacted by your work and research products to help shape your project, rather than trying to engage them in spaces that weren’t historically created with them in mind. Their lived expertise often improves project or data quality in ways that we just can’t see from the perspective of academia. 
3. Reflect on your audience: consider who’s currently able to participate and who’s not. Address accessibility barriers in your project by adding tools like captioning, multilingual materials, or different representations of data to help meet people where they’re at, expand your reach, and improve engagement on your project.

These points made me think about how my own project would look if I defined success differently and centered the experiences of the people and communities involved. Since then, I’ve started paying more attention to the experience and retention of volunteers on my project (their confidence in their ability to make classifications, their connection to the project, their progress towards their own goals) and we’ve incorporated more of their feedback in updates to the platform, inviting them to co-create resources for other participants and giving them the opportunity to share the project themselves. Rackeb’s biggest lesson to me was that building inclusion into your project isn’t just good for participants, it’s essential for doing better science. 

Bonus Highlight: Focusing on what keeps people coming back and building spaces where people thrive

Watch ????: Women in Astronomy Citizen Science

This panel tied together so many themes from the series and made them feel personal to me as a woman who works in astronomy and citizen science. To keep it brief, here are my top takeaways from the speakers in this event:

1.  Focus on the audiences your project naturally attracts and remove barriers for them (Julia Parrish)
2. Build a community where people feel welcomed and represented (Corey Jackson) 
3. Frame participation as learning together rather than coming in as an expert (Vivian White) 

Those lessons really reinforced for me the point that representation, community, and how we frame learning can impact who shows up, who stays, and who thrives on a project. 

Closing

These have been some of my favorite highlights, but this series covers everything from designing strong projects to engaging and training volunteers, improving data quality, and finding funding. Even though some events were recorded years ago, the newly re-organized archive of videos makes it easy to explore topics that are still important and relevant. 

To help you get started and find your own highlights, I’ve created posts on Designing for Social Interaction, Building Community, and Lessons from Projects with Advanced Users, along with videos on Rethinking Data and Changing How I Think About Audience for the AAPS website.

I hope this post inspires you to explore the archive of NASA Cit Sci Leaders series events, revisit and reflect on your own practices, and find new ways to make your science stronger, more open and inclusive, and more connected to the communities it serves.