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Kari FischerHi! So great of you to stop by.
SolvingFor is so proud of—and thankful for—everything that our community has cultivated, workshopped, and spun up thus far; and we’re ready to open our doors to new members.
If this is your first time here: we’re Solving For Science, an organization dedicated to changing the culture of science from within. Our work is driven by a community of scientists and allies who are committed to making science more collaborative, inclusive, and socially engaged.
We’re a bit different in that we hope to address *gestures widely* all of scientific culture and we’re asking scientists to take direct roles in making that change. That’s because we feel, with all of our beings, that nothing changes unless we do.
Our goals are big and challenging. But we’re going to tackle them one bite at a time through our campaigns—specific, time-bound, actionable projects—and then amplify our wins to spread change.
We’ll do everything we can to get it right the first time, but we also recognize that our campaigns are experiments. This is personal, human, messy work. But we’ll learn from our failures as much as our wins.
If you’ve read our manifesto about us, clocked our general vibe—bold-sincere-joyful-compassionate with a side of deep self-reflection—and you’re intrigued; then here’s a bit more about what being a member means:
What you do
We are a distributed community of action, which means that we will ask you to step up—to cultivate ideas, share resources, help us plan and vet new campaigns, participate in campaigns. But we also recognize that this is not your day job. We have different levels of involvement that that you can “titrate” according to your availability.
What we give
In addition to convening and connecting our community, we provide the support to turn your ideas into action. This manifests as staffing to help guide our idea engines and campaigns, funding to make our projects a reality, and connections—to expertise that helps ensure we’re on the right track and to our networks to amplify our change.
What you get
Well of course there’s the opportunity to do something.
“Action is the antidote to despair.” - Joan Baez.
But part of why we exist is because we see a lot of work happening that is either well-meaning but misguided or it’s trapped in isolation—and either way, those efforts end in frustration. If you’re open to joining us, we provide the guidance, network, and support to ensure that the time you spend is meaningful and effective.
Not to mention, our community is phenomenal. Just incredibly motivated, kind, caring, thoughtful people.
New members who join this summer will have the opportunity to participate in our first campaigns—a course on public engagement, and another on becoming an anti-racist scientist—a pretty stellar way to kick off your journey with us.
So that’s us in a nutshell, if a nutshell can encompass an ever-evolving organization that’s ready to tackle big things. We can’t wait to work with you.
A few FAQ’s
SolvingFor staff will be in touch to set you up with an orientation and introduce you to our workspace.
Pretty much! Our campaigns may have some in-person components. We’re also hoping to set up a few regional-get togethers and gather the whole community in one place when we can. But most of what we do happens in our online workspace and over Zoom.
The majority of our meetings and events fall between the hours of 12 PM - 5 PM Eastern, so if that schedule is doable for you then that’s wonderful! If not, you may want to consider just being added to our mailing list for the moment (which is an option on our Get Involved form).
Our community is approximately 70 scientists and allies—mostly immunologists, including many mid-career PI’s, who started coming together at meetings called Immuno-Skamania back in 2019.