We would like to formally announce the launch of Solving for Science, a new 501c3 designed to change the culture of science from within.
Solving for Science will activate a distributed community of working scientists and allies across boundaries to transform our ideas into the foundation of a new scientific future. We recognize that the norms that shape how science is done, who becomes a scientist, and how science is communicated are no longer sustainable. Together, we will catalyze action in order to reject the systems and incentive structures that lead to competition over collaboration, exclusion over inclusion, and isolation over engagement. As working members of the scientific community, we realize that nothing will change until we do.
SolvingFor will operate as an incubator, think tank, and learning community, focusing ideas coming from the Community into actionable campaigns, which we’ll then supply with the resources, funding, and staff to advance demonstrable and durable change in how science works. With our community, we will be tackling a range of challenges like credit sharing; data sharing; diversity, equity, and inclusion; interdisciplinarity; mentorship; and more. We’re doing all this because it’s the right thing to do, but we are confident these changes will also result in better science.
Solving for Science was started by Matthew Krummel, PhD, Chair of the UCSF ImmunoX Initiative (https://immunox.ucsf.edu/) who holds the Robert E. Smith Endowed Chair in Pathology; Vincent Chan, PhD, the Chief Strategy Officer of the Bakar ImmunoX Initiative at UCSF, who co-founded ImmunoX in 2018 and also directs the Office for Collaborative Research; Liz Neeley, founder and CEO of Liminal and a science communicator, trainer, and coach who is a lecturer at Yale, where she is the Senior Advisor for Science Communication, sits on the Simons Foundation Outreach and Education Advisory Committee, and is an external advisor to the Institute for Diversity Sciences, and the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program; and Brooke Runnette, founder of Change Agency Collective and Senior Advisor for Fellowships at Emerson Collective, and formerly EVP of National Geographic Society, President of National Geographic Studios, and an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist and producer. All four are founding members of the board of directors. We also want to acknowledge the hard work and support of the other founding members of our community: Alex Hoffman, Ananda Goldrath, Casey Burnett, De’Broski Herbert, Igor Brodsky, José Ordovás-Montañés, Keke Fairfax, Marc Jenkins, Marion Pepper, Mark Ansel, Sunny Shin, and Tiffany Scharschmidt.
We are also thrilled to introduce our inaugural Executive Director, Kari Fischer.
Kari Fischer, PhD is a habitual changemaker and boundary spanner who has spent her career chipping away at the norms that underlie scientific culture. As an Associate Director at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), she managed early career awards that promoted a more diverse oncology research workforce, she bridged the divide between academia and industry with a investigator-led drug research program, and she launched the BCRF Global Data Hub—a centralized research portal to foster data sharing and collaboration. At the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), where Kari planned life sciences symposia and public programs, she changed her department’s approach to speaker diversity to promote equity in professional development for scientists. She also leveraged her events to develop a better understanding of how science can improve how it interfaces with the world, engaging with the topics of science misinformation and bioethics so deeply that she positioned NYAS as a thought leader at its first-ever panels at South by Southwest. Kari received her PhD at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she studied breast cancer metastasis and published in Nature. She attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (go UMASS!). Her science writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Scientist, and on the International Space Station.
The work of Solving for Science will be iterative, collaborative, and bold; our style between a dinner party and a creative workshop, our ethos a strong pillar of our work. Right now, we’re in beta mode, putting our process through its paces, and walking the talk by challenging our own baggage and old habits as we build. We look forward to announcing more in the coming months as we ready a few campaigns for formal launch, and open up onboarding process to more members and our Idea Engines for more ideas.
For more information and to get involved, please visit our site SolvingFor.org.