CSM Lab News

Here, you’ll find a chronological summary of notable news and updates from the Lab. We aim to keep our community informed on the ongoing work/experiments to enhance accessibility, functionality, and engagement as we work to make civic science scholarship and practice more accessible to all.

• 2025-05-06: The Civic Science Times is renamed to The Civic Science Observer to better reflect the focus of the coverage and analysis.
• 2025-02-13: CivicSciTV hosts a record 7 interviews with scholars and practitioners during the 2025 Annual Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• 2024-11-08: The CSM Lab partners with the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) to enhance the accessibility and visibility of lessons being learned from new publications and events.
• 2024-11-01: CSM Lab’s CivicSciTV Network is added to the CASW Connector as a resource.
• 2024-10-15: CSM Lab and Litmaps partner to develop the growing CivicSci-Litmap project.

• 2024-10-03: CivicSciTV Network passes the 500 subscriber mark on YouTube with a growth rate of 27% (last quarter). The average view rate of all videos on the network is around 40% (the average length of videos on the network is 25min). X/Twitter followers are around 3670 with about 400+ subscribers on our newsletter with a ~40% open rate.
• 2024-07-24: Leaders of the Seattle Math Museum showcase their CivicSciTV interview on their website.
• 2024-06-10: The Civic Science Funding landscape dashboard is launched.
• 2024-05-01: CS Media Lab receives sponsorship from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC-EDC) for a special series on the CivicSciTV Network about civic science projects the organization has supported.
• 2024-04-29: SaiTV on YouTube is formally renamed to CivicSciTV and launches new promotional video (see below). The network’s flagship show is called Questions of the Day.

• 2024-04-01: CivicSciTV Radio is launched on Spotify.
• 2024-04-01: CS Media Lab receives grant from the Rita Allen Foundation.
• 2024-02-01: Website data from storiesinscience.org, saicollective.org, YouTube, and other databases begin migration to the central lab website.
• 2024-01-15: CivicScienceMedia.org is formally registered and website is launched.
• 2023-10-15: The Civic Science Media Lab Awarded its 1st formal Civic Science Journalism Research Grant from the Berlin Science Festival

• 2023-11-11: In partnership with the Lasker Foundation and Research!America, CS Media Lab launches the 1st dashboard visualizing the landscape of public engagement training in the US. Watch the launch here.
• 2023-06-15: Lab hosts dinner with scholars and practitioners in Washington DC.
• 2023-07-01: The Fellows program is retired and is transitioned to a residency model.
• 2023-04-28: Civic Science Times Reporter Gina Errico Selected as AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow
• 2022-12-01: Lab Director Fanuel Muindi selected by the Lasker Foundation and Research!America to lead landscaping project.
• 2022-12-05: Lab hosts 2022 Fellows pitch day.
• 2022-12-04: Former Lab Fellow Sarah Lamm Secures Funding from the Kansas Geological Foundation for ‘Rocks and Rockets’
• 2022-11-28: Interview on CivicSciTV is featured by the eLife Open Science Champions November Newsletter
• 2022-11-28: Capital University features Cohort 8 Fellow’s Initiative ‘Girls in Science Day’
• 2022-11-17: Lab hosts pitch day for 8th cohort of fellows.

• 2022-11-10: Lab hosts a local meet-up of civic science scholars and practitioners in Boston in 2021.
• 2022-10-28: CSM invited by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to share insights from its ongoing coverage and research.
• 2022-10-24: Former SRC Fellow in the Lab featured by the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard.
• 2022-10-13: Resident Kristel Tjandra in the SRC is awarded the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication.
• 2022-10-02: CSM Lab provides inaugural supplemental funding to 5 residents in the collective.
• 2022-09-16: 8th Cohort of Fellows Join the CSM Lab’s Resident Collective.
• 2022-08-30: Lab hosts dinner meet up with local scholars and practitioners in Washington DC.

• 2022-04-01: CSMLab launches its Endowment Fund to provide unrestricted support for lab operations.
• 2021-11-29: Lab hosts a local meet-up for civic science scholars and practitioners in Boston.

• 2021-10-04: CSM Lab welcomes the 6th Cohort of fellows.
• 2021-07-22: CSM Lab hosts first summer symposium: A time for reflections and celebrations!
• 2021-06-21: Lab is awarded a $35,000 ASCB Public Engagement grant to support the Summer Internship Program
• 2021-05-08: CSM Lab Builds India Covid19 Initiative List to Help Donors Find Orgs
• 2021-03-22: Lab welcomes the 5th cohort of fellows.
• 2021-02-14: Lab Director Fanuel Muindi Among 1000 Inspiring Black Scientists
• 2020-12-10: Lab publishes analysis of the evolving structure and diversity of the published human narratives in the Stories in Science project.
• 2020-11-26: Cohort 4 Fellows Pitch their Projects on Demo Day.
• 2020-11-30: Stories in science chapter creation endeavor is discontinued.
• 2020-11-19: CSM Lab Receives first grant to develop New Society Art Gallery.
• 2020-11-03: CSM Lab selected as one of 5 finalist non-profit organizations to pitch at the 2020 Life Science and Healthcare Non-profits in Massachusetts Pitch Challenge.
• 2020-08-28: CSM Lab Awarded Burroughs Wellcome Fund Grant to support the fellows program.
• 2020-08-20: The Lab celebrates the inaugural Summer Intern Class.
• 2020-03-27: CSM Lab invited to present at Cornell University by Bruce Lewenstein.
• 2019-11-25: Columbia University becomes the first university to create a Stories in Science Chapter.
• 2019-11-08: CSM Lab Presents the Stories in Science project at the Inaugural Watch:City Science & Technology Forum at Brandeis University.
• 2019-10-15: Emily Sherman from the CS Media Lab presents a poster at the 2019 MIT Global Bio Summit.

• 2019-09-22: CSM Lab invited to present stories in science project by the Columbia Neuroscience Society to the first Encephalon Conference.
• 2019-08-20: CSM Lab hosts Stories in Science exhibit at the New York Academy of Sciences.
• 2019-08-12: Stories in Science project exhibits in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 2019-07-29: CSM Lab Attends a National Academy Planning Meeting on Creating a High-Impact Award for the Public Understanding of Science.
• 2019-07-27: CS Media Lab Interviewed by SCATV.
• 2019-06-26: CSM Lab presents at the 2019 CESTEMER Conference in NYC.
• 2019-05-18: Lab’s Stories in Science Presents at Harvard’s 1st DIB Conference
• 2019-04-16: With support from the ASCB COMPASS outreach grant, the lab hosts Stories in Science Gallery at the Cambridge Science Festival.
• 2019-03-05: The stories in science project in the lab selected for the 2019 Cambridge Science Festival.

• 2019-01-19: CS Media Lab launches the Fellows Program.
• 2019-01-01: The lab receives trademark for the ‘Stories in Science’ project.
• 2018-09-30: WBRS Radio Station interviews lab director/founder Fanuel Muindi and Board Member Jessica W. Tsai.
• 2018-08-97: CS Media Lab receives 501c3 Non Profit Status as ‘Stem Advocacy Institute’
• 2017-09-10: Lab Director Fanuel Muindi presents at the UNESCO’s 2017 International Symposium in Bangkok, Thailand.
• 2017-07-02: Lab Director invited to serve on a panel at ComSciCon 2017 at Harvard University.

• 2017-07-01: Lab Publishes its first book titled ‘Journeys in Science: Inspiring the Next Generation.
• 2016-12-01: ‘Stories in Science’ mapping project is launched.
• 2015-12-03: The domain name stemadvocacy.org is registered.
• 2015-02-10: Invitation to the 2015 Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore hosted by the National Research Foundation.

• 2014-04-22: The lab publishes “The case for a global fund for science education” in SciDev

• 2013-01-01: Early discussions about the lab began, resulting in the first set of published letters and articles in SciDev and Nature, setting the stage for continued work in mapping the landscape of civic science.