News Article

A delegation of eight iUTAH participants accepted an invitation to participate in the biannual 24th National NSF EPSCoR Conference, co-hosted by New Hampshire and Maine EPSCoR in Portsmouth, New Hampshire from November 2-4. The Utah delegation was headed up by Project Director Michelle Baker, Assistant Director and Project Administrator Andy Leidolf, and EOD Coordinator Ellen Eiriksson; joined by postdoctoral researcher Rachel Gabor, Utah State University graduate student Beth Ogata, and her 2015 iFellow mentee Don Long from Southern Utah University; as well as members of the iUTAH management team Tami Goetz from the Governor's Office of Economic Development and Jeff Broadbent from USU's Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

Over the course of two days, participants took part in plenary and breakout sessions focused on building collaboration among EPSCoR jurisdictions, and on ways to better communicate science in general, and the benefits and accomplishments of EPSCoR in particular, to our stakeholders and the public. The highlight of the conference was an interactive presentation by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, led by none other than Alan Alda.  The Alda Center was established to help train scientists and health professionals to communicate more effectively with the public.

A highlight for Project Director Michelle Baker was the opening plenary of the conference remarks by New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan, who was one of five women leaders featured. “It was refreshing and remarkable to open a science conference with these inspiring female voices.” said Baker.

The third day of the EPSCoR conference was reserved for business meetings of EPSCoR Project Directors, Project Administrators, and EOD staff.  The agenda centered on turning the discussions of the previous two days into specific action items for implementation by the EPSCoR community. How do we leverage the strengths of individual EPSCoR jurisdictions to facilitate cross-jurisdictional synergy? How do we communicate our accomplishments to the public and stakeholders? How do we demonstrate EPSCoR's value to a Congress increasingly wary of the need for this program?  These and other questions were at the center of many spirited and informative discussions, and participants left with a renewed sense of understanding and purpose regarding the challenges and opportunities faced by EPSCoR.

Three iUTAHns were also chosen to participate in a half-day pre-conference workshop on "Building and Evaluating Collaboration Capacity." "The iUTAH project is a perfect example of the successful conduct of team science," said Leidolf.  "The workshop really validated a lot of what we have been doing, allowed us the opportunity to network with others involved in collaborative research, and gain new perspectives on building on our accomplishments and evaluate the outcomes of our work."