M-Lab Group Leader selected by the Lasker Foundation and Research!America to lead landscaping project

Fanuel Muindi, Founder and the Chief Resident at SAi, was recently selected as the Inaugural Lasker/Research!America Fellow for Civic Science. Beginning in December 2022, the one-year fellowship is a result of a partnership between Research!America and the Lasker Foundation. During the fellowship, Muindi will conduct a detailed landscape visualization of U.S.-based civic science training initiatives and build a responsive dashboard to allow users to interact with the data.

This fellowship fully aligns with Muindi’s ongoing work in his lab, which specializes in building new platforms to enable the study and visualization of civic science ecosystems around the world. The lab’s mission is to organize the world’s science engagement information in a way that is accessible, informative, and actionable. The fellowship project will be the main project for Muindi through the end of 2023. 

Muindi’s lab has been involved in several other projects over the years. These include engineering a platform to store personal stories in science from around the world (Journal of Stories in Science); creating a global directory of science engagement initiatives (SciReach); developing a platform to characterize the landscape of science communication jobs (SciComm Board), studying the distribution of science museums in Mexico, and launching SAi’s library and TV Network. His lab has also hosted several SAi summer interns and fellows who have worked on diverse projects over the years.

Muindi’s selection for the fellowship is a testament to his team’s growing work and their focus on characterizing the diverse landscape of science engagement worldwide.