Stories

Civic Science Fellow Theresa Donofrio helps museums inspire hope and action

Shortly after her undergraduate studies, Theresa Donofrio began working at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. As she moved through spaces that were carefully designed to convey one of history’s hardest truths, something clicked for her, profoundly shaping her understanding of what museums can truly achieve.

“Museums are collective meaning-making projects,” she says. “They’re sites where communities shape our understanding of the past, present, and future, and how we’re situated within that.” In that moment, Theresa glimpsed communication’s potential for inspiring understanding and action. “I often describe communication as a superpower,” she says. “This is the work of building and shaping the environments we come to inhabit.”

Nearly two decades later, Theresa brings that same energy and curiosity to her role as a Civic Science Fellow with Seeding Action, an initiative of the Association of Science and Technology Centers. Her ambitious mission is to leverage the power of museums to inspire collective imagination, hope, and tangible actions toward planetary health—including climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, and the global systems supporting life.

Before joining Seeding Action, Theresa was a tenured Associate Professor teaching communication at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Much of her research centered on how societies create meaning from difficult public events—at memorials and museums, through language and storytelling, in formal classes and informal dialogues.

Moving from academia to civic science was a natural progression of Theresa’s longstanding interests in rhetorical framing, public memory, and collective agency. “Agency is the capacity to shape and reshape the world,” she says. “Communication is fundamentally intertwined with this sense of agency; we use communication to propose that many things could always be otherwise. There are multiple ways to define and make meaning of events, ideas, experiences, and contexts. Through communication, we engage and participate in that collective building and shaping process.” 

And possibilities are precisely what Seeding Action hopes will sprout in museums, science centers, and public engagement networks worldwide. Their goal is fostering what they call “active hope”: the empowering sense that a healthier planet is achievable if people and communities recognize their roles in that transformation. 

“We know planetary health issues framed apocalyptically may trigger resignation, whereas representing issues as subject to change can give rise to action,” Theresa says. “Those representational approaches are choices—meaning they’re subject to change. Therein lies our agency.”

Sparking imagination 

Seeding Action was excited about the prospect of hosting a Fellow who could help them find and develop effective approaches for cultivating a culture of hope and action, says executive director Rose Hendricks, herself a former Civic Science Fellow. 

One of Theresa’s key tasks during the Fellowship has been exploring the role of imagination. “Terri has had the opportunity to work with our members to iteratively develop insights into promising practices in the use of imagination to spark action,” Hendricks says.

Theresa describes imagination as “the practice of thinking into what could be,” an activity central to altering how people engage with challenges. But imagination can be tricky terrain. Too broad a prompt (“Imagine the future!”) feels overwhelming, especially in complex topics like global environmental change. Too narrow (“Diagram how a car might work in 2033”) is constraining, perhaps even shutting down real imaginative possibility.

To move toward more generative imagination prompts, Theresa organized a workshop with museum professionals focused on the tension between openness and specificity. “It’s a dance,” she says. “The goal is an empowering, generative tension. You must allow for unknown possibilities, yet ground things enough that people feel empowered and energized rather than hindered.”

The power of collaboration

Through gatherings like the workshop and wider-ranging, collaborative conversations with scientists, museum professionals, and researchers, Theresa is co-creating resources soon to be released through Seeding Action. These resources will include practical tools, frameworks, templates, and narratives to help museums inspire community-level imagination and participation in action to improve planetary health.

“This project doesn’t exist without collaboration,” Theresa says. “Every part has been thoroughly informed by partnerships. It’s fundamentally iterative, a practice of drafting out loud and improving ideas through feedback.”

Coming from academia, Theresa was initially uncomfortable with openly sharing early, unfinished ideas. Traditionally trained scholars often hesitate to present works in progress in public spaces. But she soon discovered what civic scientists deeply understand: Generous sharing and collective creativity forge stronger ideas and richer collaborations. 

“We put ideas in the open, co-create, build resources collaboratively,” she says. “That’s how really meaningful work happens.”

For Theresa, fostering imagination and action requires more than great partners and resources. It demands carefully designed environments: spaces that are inclusive, inspiring and challenging. “I think deeply about building spaces where everyone feels welcomed and supported,” she says. “Spaces designed thoughtfully to foster imaginative risk-taking and collaborative thinking.”

She recalls instances from her teaching years of carefully co-creating classroom environments to foster respect and freedom to tackle difficult questions. “The questions civic science tackles require human connection and imagination. The shape of the spaces we create profoundly influences those possibilities,” she says.

An intentional Fellowship community

Theresa says the Civic Science Fellowship has had benefits that go beyond project support for her and the others in her cohort who work at intersections between academia, research, policy spaces, and community groups. 

“Boundary-spanning can feel empowering yet isolating,” she says. “You have this freedom, but you also need mentorship, feedback, and collaborative relationships. The Fellowship community provides precisely that foundation that’s vital to doing new, exploratory, cross-disciplinary work.”

Weekly meetings and community-building conversations provide shared foundations, with Fellows bringing diverse expertise and experiences to bear on one another’s work. “Being in community with Fellows has been vital,” she says.

Theresa is particularly grateful for funding structures that prioritize creative space rather than narrowly prescribed results. “So often we want to know exactly what outcomes will look like in advance,” she says. “But when exploring imagination in the context of planetary health issues, those outcomes must emerge iteratively, collaboratively. Funders who believe that important, meaningful impacts often come precisely from uncertainty are truly invaluable.”

As her Fellowship nears completion, Theresa remains deeply optimistic. She sees museums playing uniquely powerful roles as narrative architects, public conveners, and community catalysts leading society toward imaginative solutions for planetary wellbeing.

“A healthier planet is genuinely possible,” Theresa says. The essential message she hopes museum visitors and professionals carry forward is hopeful agency. “We all have roles in realizing it,” she says.

Looking ahead, the Fellowship has reshaped how Theresa will approach whatever comes next, whether it’s in academia, policy, communication, or future museum collaborations. 

“I already knew, fundamentally, how powerful rhetoric and communication could be,” she says. “But now, I understand better how vital imaginative collaboration is, too. How incredibly transformative it can be when we truly invite everyone in to envision healthier possible futures.”

Theresa is a member of the 2024-25 Civic Science Fellows cohort. Her Fellowship is supported by the Rita Allen Foundation and Burroughs Wellcome Fund.