“MuseHack is about finding new ways to use, improve, and apply your creativity, geekery, inspiration and passions. It’s about hacking your Muse the same way people hack code, hardware, recipes, business techniques, productivity, and even their bodies and minds. It’s about the idea your creativity, inspiration, and passions should be put to use – and improved.”
The following is an excerpt from the full interview on MuseHack.
MuseHack: Citizen Science is a relatively new term for something old as time – non-scientists being involved in scientific endeavors (and in some cases, becoming scientists). As the internet has let people connect faster, more and more people are helping out by collating data, collecting information, or even just donating some processor time.
If you want to find a Citizen Science project, SciStarter is one of the best places to go – and a perfect resource for the civic-minded and science-minded geek. There you can find out projects to get involved in.
Now, what kind of people run something like this? Let’s talk to Founder Darlene Cavalier. Darlene’s background includes everything from a cheerleading career to a masters degree, from serving at a university to being a mom, took time out of her busy schedule to tell me more about the effort.
… how would you describe your mission?
Cavalier: First and foremost, we want to help people recognized that they are as entitled as anyone else to play active roles in science and technology. In the process, we’ve been able to help a lot of researchers and other people organizing participatory research and civic engagement projects, recruit skilled participants. A win/win!