Marina Gemma

Overview

I am passionate about sharing the excitement of planetary science with the public, increasing access to scientific knowledge, improving public scientific literacy, and inspiring the next generation of scientists. Being a full-time graduate researcher at the American Museum of Natural History allowed me to integrate these passions during my PhD, through the public outreach, education, and mentoring I have been a part of. My time at the museum has not only encouraged my growth as a scientist, but also fostered my abilites as an educator and science communicator. My passion for scientific outreach and communication has led to my becoming deeply involved with planetary science public outreach and education not only at AMNH, but across New York City as well. Below I highlight some of the programs and events I have participated in over the last few years.

Girls Who Code @ Columbia University

The Girls Who Code organization is dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology by equipping young women with the computing skills necessary to pursue future computer science studies and jobs in tech. I became involved with the Columbia University chapter of Girls Who Code in January 2019. I spent my first year in the Girls Who Code classroom as a Classroom Manager. In January 2020, I transitioned from the classroom to the chapter's exectutive board as Vice President, in charge of internal coordination and communication between the executive team, recruiting team, and the two teaching teams in the classroom.

During the pandemic, I helped to transition our in-person classes online, which enabled us to include more students than we could in our physical classroom. In January 2021, I was elected President of the Girls Who Code chapter at Columbia. As part of my year-long term, I led the development and implementation of a third coding class with a data science curriculum.

Open House @ Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

As a graduate student at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), I participated in the annual Lamont Open House, an opportunity for the local community and broader public to visit Lamont-Doherty's beautiful campus in Palisades, NY. Visitors are invited to tour the laboratories, participate in interactive demonstrations, and learn about the research that scientists across Lamont pursue everyday. This is one of my favorite outreach events, as it attracts enthusiasts of all ages and gives them a behind the scenes look at scientific laboratories and the everyday lives of scientists.

From 2017 to 2019, I hosted a "Space Rocks!" booth where visitors could not only learn about the meteoritics research we do at LDEO and AMNH, but also hold meteorite samples in their hands. I also include a interactive demonstration of the OpenSpace software, as a means to show the asteroids and planetary bodies that meteorites come from.

In 2020, we transitioned the event online. I created a short "Meteorite Crash Course" video for participants to view ahead of time, and did a live Reddit "Ask Me Anything" during the Open House events to answer viewers' questions.

Girls' Science Day

Girls' Science Day is a free, biannual event at Columbia University that provides hands-on experiments in university laboratories for local middle school girls, created and run by Columbia graduate students. The girls participate in specially designed experiments, lectures, and activities aimed at supporting their interest in science.

Starting in 2016, I served as a group leader for Girls' Science Day. I was paired with a group of ten young women for the day, to be their guide around the Columbia campus as they visited different laboratories and to answer their questions about science, being a woman in science, high school and college education, and more.

In 2019, I was one of four graduate students selected to do an in-depth but accessible dive into my PhD research as part of the "Women in Science" panel, for the more than 100 middle school girls in the program. I brought meteorite samples to share (pictured left), which are always a hit!

OpenSpace

OpenSpace is an open source, interactive data visualization software designed to visualize the entire known universe and portray ongoing efforts to investigate the cosmos. OpenSpace supports interactive presentation of dynamic data from observations, simulations, as well as space mission planning and operations, and allows visualization at the outcrop level on extraterrestrial bodies. Originally envisioned as a robust tool for immersive on-site environments, such as planetariums and multi-screen museum exhibit installations, OpenSpace has grown to be a powerful interactive public outreach tool in our increasingly virtual world. OpenSpace is funded in part by a grant from NASA, and the project management team for the software is based out of AMNH. I have been involved in the OpenSpace Project in various roles since 2018, which I expand on below.

OpenSpace "Ambassador"
OpenSpace is a robust tool to communicate NASA science results and mission activities to public audiences. I have incorporated this powerful data visualization tool into my teaching, and have made an effort to share the teaching and outreach capabilities of the software with other scientists via various conferences, and with the general public through events such as the NASA Night Sky Network's Global Moon Party. I have worked closely with OpenSpace project management and developers over the past few years to provide content recommendations from a scientific perspective as well as practical user feedback to contribute to ongoing software development.