Dean's Blog: Sharing our science

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So far, I’ve taken three extensive site tours focusing on our college’s research footprint. Last week, I had the pleasure of connecting with scientists in their laboratories on Mason’s Science and Technology campus in Manassas, VA and am very impressed by our team, their capabilities, discoveries and impact potential.

In our research cores, including Mason’s state-of-the art Biomedical Research Laboratory and Cap/CLIA certified facilities, they work hard to address grand and global challenges like COVID-19, HIV, Ebola, Zika, cancer, COPD, ecosystem response to stress and climate change, and the next great biothreat. And we want to highlight these research efforts, elevating their visibility within the communities we serve.

Our recently launched website and social media channels are primed and ready to share our science stories. And we’ve made it easy for you to do so. Each week, we are creating written stories, social media posts and video overviews of our people, research projects, and programs and ask for your help.

As you learn of awards and grants, or research milestones are met, share them with us to be included in our periodic accolades compilation. Take a few minutes and work with your unit website point of contact or our communications team to add events to the website calendar or to update your website faculty profile. Make sure your profile accurately reflects your academic and research interests as we will link your name in your science stories to your profile page.

A big thank you to those of you who already use social media to share your professional experiences at Mason. Please tag your posts with #MasonScience to make sure that it gets seen and amplified across our college’s and the broader George Mason University social networks.

Please share your science news via our website submission page or email cosnews@gmu.edu. Our team will schedule a science story briefing to confirm the details, and then, once the draft is written and the story and graphics are reviewed and approved, we will share your information.

As you can see from these pictures from the recent SciTech Research tour, we’ve got many Mason Science success stories in the making. Each of the researchers I met have inspiring tales to tell and, given our current virtual status, it’s even more important to up our science storytelling game. I encourage you to take time to share your science. It may even inspire a future scientist, establish a collaboration or lead to research funding.

I can’t wait to hear your stories.