What is JNIPER?
The Joint Network for Informal Physics Education and Research (JNIPER) is a community of practice that promotes connection, collaboration, and learning around research-based, culturally competent, and equity-oriented practices for engaging with the public on physics topics. JNIPER aims to elevate the value of informal physics education and public engagement. The community welcomes members with a range of public engagement backgrounds.
What is the JNIPER Summit?
The JNIPER Summit is an invitational conference with the goal of developing a roadmap for achieving robust departmental and institutional support for informal physics education and public engagement in physics. Informal physics education (IPE) has a myriad of benefits for participants, facilitators, and the broader discipline of physics. Yet, IPE is predominantly practiced at the margins of our institutions. The Summit will convene 40 key stakeholders including IPE practitioners, IPE researchers, IPE funders, and representatives from the institutions where IPE takes place and could be recognized (e.g. departments, National Labs).
The Summit will feature keynote addresses, working groups, and small breakout sessions. The program will be geared toward developing guiding principles and strategies for how the community will advance informal physics education and public engagement over the next 5 years so that it moves from a peripheral to a core practice of physicists, our departments, and our institutions. These plans will be reported in a white paper following the Summit. The Summit will strengthen the JNIPER community and guide activity in informal physics education over the next several years.
Summit Organizers
Jessica Hoehn, Director of Public Engagement and Education Research, JILA Physics Frontier Center, University of Colorado Boulder
Alexandra Lau, Senior Public Engagement Program Manager, JNIPER community manager, American Physical Society
Claudia Fracchiolla, Head of Public Engagement, American Physical Society
Katie Hinko, Assistant Professor of Physics, Michigan State University
Noah Finkelstein, Professor of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder
Michael Bennett, Director for Workforce Development and Education, QSEnSE Quantum Leap Challenge Institute, University of Colorado Boulder
For further information about this program: https://www.aps.org/programs/outreach/jniper/
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.