On Wednesday, December 1, 2021 the UK Superfund Research Center’s Research Experience and Training Coordination Core hosted Adam Steinberg for a one-day ‘Science Visualization’ workshop for trainees on how to implement the “Storyform method” for research and data visualization. This is a specific type of research translation that uses materials and tools derived from the elements and principles of story and demonstrates how they are used to create highly effective, exceptional presentations, slides, posters and infographics.

The majority of trainees are graduate students across multiple disciplines including chemical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, toxicology and data science/bioinformatics. There were also some post-docs present.

Chemical Engineering Ph.D. candidate and trainee, Molly Frazar said that the workshop was engaging and extremely interactive. “The amazing thing about this workshop is that no matter where you are in your academic journey – whether you are about to defend your dissertation with a plethora of data, or you have just begun graduate school and have not a single experiment under your belt - you learned the tools to help you best communicate and understand your research.”

The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center (UKSRC), funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), integrates multidisciplinary research, training, and stakeholder engagement around a common theme: reducing health risks posed by environmental contaminants in vulnerable communities. Specifically, the center focuses on investigating the impact of persistent halogenated organics (e.g. PCBs, PCE, TCE, and PFAS), reducing the toxic effects of these chemicals, and probing the unique challenges posed to under-resourced communities with health disparities. They use an intervention and prevention paradigm by promoting healthy lifestyles (i.e., healthful nutrition and increased physical activity) as a means to reduce the disease risks associated with exposure to Superfund pollutants and design engineered solutions that reduce future exposures through innovative sensing, remediation and fate and transport science.