Humanities Clinic Intern Develops Community Engagement Tools
Wayne State University's Humanities Clinic Internship Program seeks to connect Humanities graduate students with internships that help students gain critical skills for post-graduate work. This year, CLEAR partnered with D'Arcy Cook. Cook is a PhD student in the History department working with Dr. Rahul Mitra through the Humanities Clinic internship program. Cook is furthering the StoryMaps project that Gianluca Sperone and Brendan O'Leary started in 2023. This summer, Cook will create an accessible resource for CLEAR community members: explaining what VOCs are, what CLEAR does to monitor and study them, and how community members can take more control over their relationships with VOCs in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities.
Cook has both an engineering (Chemical Engineering and Air Quality) and humanities background. Cook's unique set of skills will help bridge the communication gap between STEM and the broader public. Cook stated she is inpsired by the scholarly work of CLEAR’s project teams, and is excited to translate it into accessible language for readers no matter their background.
Translating research accessibly means explaining concepts without jargon, but also in a way that respects the reader and helps them make new connections. Thus, Cook's StoryMap utilizes some of the work Dr. Rahul Mitra has already done with Suzie the Scientist video series, as well as resources from CLEAR's Community Engagement Core. Cook says, "I build definitions from the ground up: first the StoryMap explains what VOCs are; then why they matter in Detroit and how CLEAR is researching them; and finally move into the readers' communities and even homes, explaining how the Community Engagement Core home visits work and what people can do in their own homes to monitor and improve air quality."
Cook's time at CLEAR has been fun and engaging, and she is looking forward to all the ways StoryMaps can help CLEAR reach the Detroit community and continue to make academic research more accessible!