Pushing Boundaries – Women Scientists at the Forefront of Community-Engaged Research

Held on October 21, 2021.

On Thursday, October 21st, The Boston University Urban Climate Initiative partnered with the Initiative on Cities (IOC) on a virtual event exploring the work of women scientists in community engaged research and the opportunities it offers.

Moderated by IOC Co-Director Katharine Lusk, the event featured Dr. Patricia Fabian, Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the BU School of Public Health; Dr. Lucy Hutyra, interim IOC Director and BU Professor of Earth and Environment; Dr. Madeleine L. Scammell, Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the BU School of Public Health, and Pamela Templer, Director of the BU URBAN Program and BU Professor of Biology.

The panel discussed community engagement in their research, funding, and peer reception.

Community Engagement in research work

Dr. Scammell has sought to research responses to questions from the community. She prefers to use the term “participatory research or community-based participatory research” to define engagement. “Typically, I’ve tried to work with environmental communities, low-income communities, and pretty much all of my research on urban heat islands and chronic kidney diseases in central America has some community engagement.”

Dr. Fabian noted C-HEAT, a project that she and Dr. Scammell co-directed to explain working with community organizations. It looks into heat exposure in Chelsea and East Boston. “I’ve worked in community engagement with community organizations where their goals were education and ours were environmental work.” They are looking to engage with both research subjects and researchers to look into the diverse problems. Currently, they are working with GreenRoots, a climate justice organization. They also co-wrote a grant, of which a big portion is funding community organization and hiring someone who can help support this. Dr. Fabian also spoke about photovoice, which is talking to people about their experiences of heat and linking that with the data

“In discussions about their questions related to our larger research questions, we’ve modified and added onto the research question that is interesting to us,” said Scammell. Dr. Fabian added that community engagement is everyone sitting at the table and that in the city of Chelsea, organizations, and initiatives can be heard. Dr. Scammell added that this is a form of hybrid direct engagement through the use of social media by sharing what they found.

Coming from the field of bio geosciences, Dr. Templer stated that her interest is in understanding the full circle look at how humans impact the environment and how that impacts health and well-being. Her focus is on forest ecology and engaging with the foresters. Her grant research Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire is about public engagement with science with people from the rural areas. Recently, there has been an interaction with the locals by getting them to participate in these conferences.

Dr. Hutyra has had a much different experience when it came to community engagement. She spoke about an initiative she co-led with scientists who had strong technical skills to measure greenhouse gases in cities but never engaged with the community. These included NGOs, city policymakers, and different government agencies. There would be a discussion about the nature of the data and how it would be used. Dr. Hutyra pointed out that scientists would go down a “rabbit hole” and the other actors would lose interest because there was uncertainty. “It made me realize it’s about what communities need to know as opposed to what we know and how to measure.” She also addressed that failure is a part of the approach. “Let me tell you about this really cool and — nobody cares, nobody in the city cares because it’s either not a hot topic moment of now or there’s no policy dimension or the community is not interested in as interesting as I think it is, they may not think it’s interesting,” said Hutyra. She said that it’s a series of relationships with different stakeholders. “It’s been a lot of failure to get towards a different way of communicating and listening.”

Peer reception and trust-building

Dr. Templer mentioned the duality that comes with peers interacting with the community. She said that the flip side to engaging in policy-relevant work is bringing in people who aren’t trained scientists and helping you with the science that’s not benefiting them. This can impact the quality of your work. “Lucy and I are held to a different standard of you must go and be objective and you don’t know what you’re going to find if you can’t advocate for that position because that compromises your objectivity.”

Dr. Hutyra pointed out that there is a conflict among scientists about community-engaged research because some science doesn’t have societal application. “It doesn’t impact policy decisions on a day-to-day basis.” Dr. Fabian said that scientists need to get out into the field and create collaborations. She believes that scientists need to speak to community members, mention what they both have to offer and how they can create a better place.

Laying the foundation of trust is critical. Dr. Scammell said that it takes time to build trust with the institution you represent and the community that you interact with. “I work in Central America, and I’d say that there are 3 people in the research team that I feel trust each other after 10 years of working together.” How can we build that trust? Dr. Scammell stated that it includes spending a lot of time listening without saying much. “Just listening and living in the community and being a member of the organization that I partner with as a researcher.”

Dr. Templer highlighted that for a project in Hubbard Brook, they hire interns to shovel snow using snowmobiles. They sometimes break down and the manager would help them out. One of the interns made a comment of getting fancier snowmobiles. The manager was angry and she said it involved a series of apologies to gain back that trust. She believes that it’s much easier to lose trust than earn it.

Funding and Training

“We [BU School of Public Health] had 2 departments in community engagement, but we have none right now, so the commitment to researching with strong community engagement will be a challenge” said Dr. Scammell. She highlighted that external funding supports some of the faculty and not others. This leads to disparity in training while doing the same quality of work.

Dr. Fabian added that in the funding landscape, there are grants that explicitly state that a researcher cannot engage in policy advocacy. She believes that policy impact is important while looking at community engagement and its validity. Grants need to allow for policy impact to get a better understanding of issues that communities face. Dr. Templer pointed out how the National Science Foundation now provides grant opportunities that require a mature participatory element to the research.

Another problem is training, particularly in community engagement. Dr. Fabian stated that many researchers want their work to be impactful, but often don’t get the right training for it. While measuring the use of bacteria for UV disinfection of tuberculosis surrogates, her training only covered how to measure UV light and how to grow bacteria. It did not train her to talk to hospitals, to the homeless. She believes that not having the training to engage the community is an obstacle for your work to have the impact one imagines. Dr. Fabian pointed out that this problem is present within universities as well, training in community engagement is critical.

She spoke about URBAN, a training grant awarded to BU by the National Science Foundation -. It provided the training that she needed. “I do think that it expanded even my idea of what a community is, community engagement because it is not only with the residents of specific communities, but it also means a lot of things.” Dr. Hutyra agreed, saying that as a faculty member, it’s been transformative, and appreciates what it’s done for students and providing them with the training that they need. Dr Templer said that she would like to see more training, whether as a certificate in community engagement or not because people have the desire to do something but don’t have the training.

When asked about what the next decade will bring for community research partnerships, Dr. Scammell said “Much more diversity in terms of who is considered a student and research and that the divide between community and academia is more of a bridge.” Dr Templer started training students and faculty. Dr. Fabian believes that integrated funding is something she would like to see. “This is not just for science but also that all grants come with a community engagement and interaction funding skill brand.” Dr. Hutyra would like to see mechanisms, money and value with universities paying for it rather than the system of three year grants and “scraping” through them.