SciAccess 2024 Conference: Call for Speakers Now Open!
SciAccess Info
Dear SciAccess Community,
We hope this message finds you well! It has been some time since our last newsletter, and we are thrilled to reconnect with all of you. Our nonprofit has been hard at work since our last SciAccess Conference, and we have some exciting updates to share with you—including announcing the SciAccess 2024 Conference!
- Save the Date: SciAccess 2024 Conference
We are so excited to announce our upcoming SciAccess 2024 Conference, scheduled for May 10-11, 2024! This free, virtual conference will serve as a platform to bring together like-minded community members, experts, and advocates to discuss pressing issues, share insights, and collaborate on topics related to disability access in STEM.
Our call for speakers is now open! If you are interested in submitting an abstract for the conference, please apply here by March 4!
For registration, keep a close eye on your inbox and the
SciAccess website, as more information will be coming soon!
2. Awards and Grants
We are delighted to announce that over the past year SciAccess has been honored with several prestigious awards and grants, including the 2023 Bolotin Award, which is the highest honor that the National Federation of the Blind bestows to organizations that are a positive force in the lives of the blind community. We also received the Falling Walls Engage Award, which recognizes SciAccess as bridging the gap between science and society for the benefit of humanity.
The SciAccess 2024 Conference is being generously supported by the Ohio State Energy Partners grant, the Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs (BETHA) endowment, and the Ohio State University
Outreach and Engagement Impact Grant. Thank you to all of our fantastic sponsors and supporters!
3. Zero-Gravity Disability Research Flights
Since our last SciAccess Conference in 2021, we’ve been busy building the AstroAccess research program, which is designed to break down barriers to human space exploration. “AstroAccess Ambassadors” are
disability advocates and researchers who have performed experiments and demonstrations in zero gravity onboard five zero-gravity parabolic flights to date! This SciAccess program has received international recognition by over a hundred media outlets, including
the New York Times,
BBC,
NPR Radio Lab,
Scientific American, and most
recently Good Morning America,
which aired national coverage of our December 2022 AstroAccess flight. Our next flight is scheduled for May 2024, taking place directly after the SciAccess Conference!
4. Our Newest Program: Solstice Outreach
In April 2023, SciAccess Assistant Director Caitlin O’Brien competed for and was awarded the President’s Buckeye Accelerator prize, a $50,000 grant that will be used to purchase a portable planetarium system to bring STEM education to underserved communities around Ohio. In partnership with SciAccess, Solstice is seeking to make accessible STEM education a primary tenant of their programming. For more information, visit solsticeoutreach.com.
We are thrilled to start the new year off by sharing these organization updates and connecting with all of you, and hope to see you at the SciAccess Conference in May!
Sincerely,
Anna Voelker, SciAccess Executive Director
Cailtin O’Brien, SciAccess Assistant Director
