Founding CEO of Letters to a Prescientist on the impact of the Sandbox Fellowship

Fanuel Muindi interviews Lucy Madden, founding CEO of Letters to a Pre-Scientist (LPS), an organization connecting middle school students in low-income schools with STEM professionals through handwritten letters. Madden reflects on the program’s origins, its mission to humanize scientists, and its evolution into a nonprofit reaching 17 states. Key themes include fostering STEM interest among underrepresented students, challenges in scaling, and the reciprocal benefits for scientists. Madden shares, “The humanizing piece is special; kids are surprised to learn their STEM professional has a dog or plays video games.” She also discusses lessons from participating in the inaugural Science Sandbox Fellowship, and emphasizes LPS’s unique role in driving resources into science classrooms.

CS Media Lab

The CS Media Lab is a Boston-anchored civic science news collective with local, national and global coverage on TV, digital print, and radio through CivicSciTV, CivicSciTimes, and CivicSciRadio. Programs include Questions of the Day, Changemakers, QuickTake, Consider This Next, Stories in Science, Sai Resident Collective and more.

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