The Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) EarthTalks spring 2025 series, “Broader Impacts and Community Engagement in Research Design,” will highlight innovative and effective ways for researchers to engage more meaningfully in the research design of public impact activities for earth and environmental systems research. The seminars are scheduled for 4 p.m. on Mondays in 112 Walker Building and also on Zoom. Seminars are free and open to the public.
The series will launch on Jan. 27 with a talk by Daniel Max Crowley, director of the Social Science Research Institute's Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative (EIC) and director of the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at Penn State. He will give the talk, “From Evidence-to-Impact: Resources and Partnerships.”
“Building the science of scientific impact, the EIC studies how to create research infrastructure and tools to enhance the relevance of academic discovery for external partners,” Crowley said. “In this talk, you will learn about opportunities and resources from the Penn State EIC and discuss opportunities for integrating social science into earth and environmental sciences.”
Crowley is a professor of health development and family studies, and public policy in the College of Health and Human Development. He also holds the C. Eugene Bennett Chair in Prevention Research. He is a prevention scientist investigating how to optimize investments in healthy development and well-being. This work sits at the intersection of social policy, prevention science and public finance. His program of research is motivated by a desire to increase the use of cost-effective, evidence-based preventive strategies to improve the lives of children and families. He said he seeks to not only understand the costs and benefits of prevention, but aims to develop better interventions and encourage them to be disseminated widely.
About the EarthTalks spring seminar series
Federal agencies, donors and foundations have long called for research to have broader impacts on society in additional to fundamental research discovery. For example, broadening participation of individuals from underrepresented groups, enhancing K-12 education or enhancing partnerships for research translation have been traditional activities for supporting broader impact research. However, the scope and purpose of broader impacts research is evolving, including new calls for proposal development and integration, revised review and reporting mechanisms, and calls for additional institutional support and recognition. Coalescing innovation in future broader impacts research is thus timely. This series will bring together leaders at Penn State and beyond to identify current opportunities and challenges in broader-impacts innovation, cultivating institutional change and growing a research community to advance these goals.
For more information about the spring 2025 series, visit the EarthTalks website.