This is the fourth installment of ESAL Founder & Chair Arti Garg's diary of her participation in a policy innovation workshop on community safety. Garg discusses the role of empathy in local policy-making, and how engineers and scientists can get comfortable with subjective evidence.

This is the third installment of ESAL Founder & Chair Arti Garg's diary of her participation in a policy innovation workshop on community safety. This post discusses how stating assumptions can enable progress in policy-making when there is uncertainty about the causes of a problem.

This is the second installment of ESAL Founder & Chair Arti Garg's diary of her participation in a policy innovation workshop on community safety. This post discusses how even when evidence is inclusive, scientific approaches can provide value in policy-making.

This is the first installment of ESAL Founder & Chair Arti Garg's diary of her participation in a policy innovation workshop on community safety. This post discusses why she believes a community-driven process can provide innovative new solutions.

On February 19, ESAL collaborated with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the National Science Policy Network (NSPN) to host the first of two webinars on “COVID Conversations.” The panelists discussed how scientists and engineers can talk about COVID-19 with their communities to dispel misconceptions and offer needed information about the pandemic.

On January 26th, ESAL hosted an event to discuss with city officials and lab manager the responsibility of explaining the science of COVID-19 and the local interactions that come with it. The discussion includes interactions between science and politics, ways to make connections with the community, and informed engagement in local government.

On December 2, ESAL co-hosted “Creating Safe Post-Pandemic School Systems”, a virtual panel with the Architectural Engineering Institute. Panelists discussed risk management, engineering solutions, and practical considerations for reopening schools.

“Our expertise is science; their expertise is what they need.” This statement by panelist Elina Kostyanovskaya referred to the importance of listening to vulnerable communities. It was one of several key takeaways from the webinar “STEM Students Responding to COVID in their Communities,” which was jointly hosted by ESAL and the National Science Policy Network […]

On September 30, ESAL and the Ecological Society of America co-hosted a webinar on “Scientists as Citizens: Getting Involved with Local Government.” ESAL volunteers made the case for how scientists can impact city, county, and state policy and presented time-tested strategies for effective engagement.