16 Oct 2025
By Sadie Coffin
Four Highlights from the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series

Four Highlights from the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series

Fellowships, ,
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…
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16 Oct 2025
By Sadie Coffin
3 Questions that Changed How I think About Volunteers/Audience

3 Questions that Changed How I think About Volunteers/Audience

Fellowships, ,
https://youtu.be/4t_hrjinR3w In my time as the NASA Cit Sci Leaders series fellow, I’ve come across advice, lessons, and tools that have already helped improve the quality of our science and my understanding of our audience. In this video, I’m sharing a review of one of the tools I’ve found most useful as a researcher and project leader: the Anticipated Volunteers Reflection Tool.  This resource helps project leaders think intentionally about who they’re trying to engage, where to find them, what they need, and what motivates them. Understanding and connecting with your audience is about more than just sharing information, it’s…
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24 Jul 2025
By Sadie Coffin
???? Rethinking Data: Building Collaborative Relationships in Citizen Science

???? Rethinking Data: Building Collaborative Relationships in Citizen Science

Fellowships, Uncategorized,
https://youtu.be/k9FJlnxo5cQ In this video, I share three big ideas from the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series about how thoughtful data practices can support stronger, more inclusive, and more impactful science. These takeaways emphasize that it’s not just about collecting good data, it’s about making that data usable, sharable, and meaningful beyond your immediate project. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; there are already great tools and examples out there to help project leaders set their data and participants up for success. Below are the talks and resources I referenced in the video: Keynote by Andrea Grover, ”Citizen Science Data:…
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28 Feb 2025
By Sadie Coffin
Building community in a citizen science project: fostering social interaction for meaningful engagement 

Building community in a citizen science project: fostering social interaction for meaningful engagement 

Fellowships, , ,
When we first launched Redshift Wrangler, I focused on making the science understandable and engaging, but what I hadn’t anticipated was how important social interactions would be in keeping volunteers engaged. What kept people coming back was a sense of community, and one of the most important ways I’ve learned to foster community on our project is by making communication a two-way street. I started to realize this when I saw that volunteers who posted on our Talk boards or joined our office hours were more likely to stick with the project longer. When I responded to questions quickly and…
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20 Feb 2025
By Sadie Coffin
Designing for social interaction: reflections from a citizen science project leader

Designing for social interaction: reflections from a citizen science project leader

Fellowships, , , ,
If I could go back to the beginning of Redshift Wrangler, I would tell myself to follow Jennifer Shirk’s advice from the CitSci2020: Dive Into Project Design series webinar: keep your goals front and center, and don’t assume what will or won’t be valuable to someone else. When we first launched the project, I was focused on making the light from distant galaxies easier to explore and interpret for a broad audience, and I thought our biggest challenge would be convincing anyone to look at our data. I quickly realized that interest in our science wasn’t an issue, what influenced…
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08 Nov 2024
By Sadie Coffin
Introducing new AAPS/NASA Citizen Science Fellow: Sadie Coffin

Introducing new AAPS/NASA Citizen Science Fellow: Sadie Coffin

Fellowships
My name is Sadie Coffin, and I’m excited to introduce myself as the first AAPS + NASA citizen science fellow. I’m currently pursuing a PhD in Astrophysics and managing a citizen science project, Redshift Wrangler. Redshift Wrangler is a citizen science project hosted on the platform Zooniverse that invites and teaches participants to help our research team classify galaxy spectra and calculate redshifts for distant galaxies. I’m looking forward to working at the intersection of research, public engagement, and participatory science, with a focus on making science more open and inclusive. These goals drive my career aspirations and inspire me…
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