RE: SelfEeducating on technical issues

[Eileen Ringnalda <eileen.ringnalda@searbrown.com>]

Alma,

I think graduate students would be accepted by the community -- in fact, I wonder if members of the general public would even differentiate between graduate students and professionals?

Graduate students are professionals working their respective fields, but they perhaps have less experience and less authority.  This may provide some advantage to public involvement from the standpoint that graduate students may be perceived as more neutral and less threatening (because they do not carry the same authority as professionals).  Graduate students may be perceived as being willing to learn about all relevant apsects (including community knowledge/input) while having knowledge and research skills to provide good contextual information.

As a graduate student and member of the academic community, I would encourage you to tap into this resource.  I find great satisfaction in applying my research knowledge and skills in community settings.  Many of my colleagues share this attitude. Utilizing graduate students also provides a great opportunity for students to do research in both technical and non-technical fields. (For instance, my field is communication.)

As a graduate researcher, I would be thrilled to have cooperation from EPA or Superfund to conduct a research project(i.e. access to information, permission to publish study) and, in turn, provide my own knowledge and skills to a public involvement process as community service.  An even better incentive would be to offer a research grant and/or stipend for graduate student participation.

Thanks for posting a comment that has spurred on this line of thought.

Eileen