ESAL spoke with director of the Environmental Innovations Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania Katie Baillie. Learn about her journey, approach to sustainability, and her advice for students and STEM professionals interested in making a difference.

On this episode of "Questions of the Day" on CivicSciTV (recorded on the sidelines of the 2025 Science Talk conference in Raleigh, North Carolina), Fanuel Muindi interviews Taylor Spicer, ESAL's executive director. Spicer provides a behind-the-scenes look at how ESAL fosters civic engagement among STEM professionals at the local level.

Would you like to connect or reconnect with ESAL's executive director? Sign up for a time during her open office hours. She would like to get to you know, hear about your local initiatives, and share about ways ESAL can support you. 

ESAL discusses the idea of using choice architecture to create more inclusive, sustainable food options in hospital, corporation and university settings with Katie Cantrell, CEO and co-Founder of Greener by Default.

STEM professionals of all career stages, whether well-established or just starting out, have a tremendous opportunity to engage with their communities. From public health to affordable housing, environmental conservation to arts and culture, scientists bring a unique insight valuable to local policy issues both within and outside of the scientific arena. However, the pathway to […]

ESAL chatted with Cindy Hua, board member of Downwinders at Risk and chair of the Particulate Matter Education Committee, about her work on empowering residents to engage with the civic process and her journey into local activism.

ESAL spoke with Christine Task, a senior research scientist at Knexus Research Corporation and contracted technical lead of the Collaborative Research Cycle (CRC) hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Privacy Engineering Program. Learn more about how Christine is mobilizing the privacy research community to solve pressing problems facing the federal government.

As communities across the country grapple with a variety of environmental policy issues, from climate resilience to mine reclamation to energy transition, the need for local solutions grounded in environmental justice is a growing imperative. Geoscientists and other STEM professionals are accordingly well-suited to leverage their scientific expertise to advance such efforts, yet are seldom […]

Cynthia Prieto-Diaz, a biomedical engineer by training, actively contributes to scientific discourse by volunteering, engaging with city governments, and advocating for STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine) involvement and consideration in local governance.Prieto-Diaz currently holds a position on the leadership team for 500 Women Scientists and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Cal Poly Pomona-Latin Alumni Network.