Stories

Civic Science Fellow Catherine Cramer maps the human ecosystem of a unique community-centered university project

On a chilly January evening in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, Catherine Cramer stood among a group of local teens and adults as they carefully assembled air quality sensors at a community workshop. For many, this was their first-ever experience building their own electronics.

“The delight on people’s faces when they realized they’d been able to actually put an air quality sensor together—which then they would install wherever they wanted, mostly in their own apartments—was incredible,” Cramer recalls. “Not only could they monitor their own air, but they were adding data to a bigger community story.”

Moments like these, when scientific engagement turns into community empowerment, lie at the heart of Cramer’s work as a Civic Science Fellow at the City University of New York’s Advanced Science Research Center in West Harlem. Her Fellowship focused on building a relational “ecosystem map” of the IlluminationSpace Hub: a unique informal STEM learning center embedded within this high-powered research institute. The idea was to make visible the connections among researchers, nonprofits, community partners, and neighbors to show how collaboration, trust, and shared learning actually happen.

Cramer’s path to civic science is rooted in both family values and a lifelong immersion in the world of science. She grew up in a diverse neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, with parents who cared about contributing to the community, and two grandfathers who were scientists. “Science was always just part of the air we breathed,” she says. “Right from the beginning, this combination of community involvement and science was my life.”

During the years before civic science became a field, Cramer was helping to connect oceanographers and educators, developing outreach for science museums, and collaborating with local organizations in some of the most diverse communities in the country. 

“Back in the day, I remember being in a meeting with others doing this kind of work, and we couldn’t even figure out what to call ourselves,” she says. “We ended up settling on ‘facilitators’.” The language has since changed to include outreach, engagement, boundary-spanning, and now co-design, but the essence remains the same: making real connections between scientists and the people and communities they serve.

Mapping relationships

When Cramer learned about the IlluminationSpace Hub at CUNY’s Advanced Science Research Center, it felt like a rare opportunity. “When I saw this very unique situation at ASRC where there’s a high-level research center with an informal STEM learning location built in since day one, I thought, that’s amazing!”

The IlluminationSpace itself stands out because it was intentionally designed as a bridge between cutting-edge science and the public. The ASRC houses five research domains—ranging from photonics to environmental sciences—and the space is shared not just with scientists, but with visiting school groups, teachers, and community organizations. “The idea was that part of what’s got to be here is an informal learning center,” Cramer says. “That kind of vision is unusual for a major research institution.”

Drawn by this unique blend, she joined the Hub team as a Civic Science Fellow in March 2024. With her experience developing tools for network mapping in education and science, Cramer approached the Fellowship as both a storyteller and a systems thinker.

Her project was to build an ecosystem map of the relationships fostered by the Hub. Rather than creating a traditional top-down report, the work unfolded through a process of open-ended and emergent exploration. Cramer conducted more than 30 in-depth interviews, coordinated nine focus groups, and drew from countless more informal encounters. The result is an online, interactive resource that doesn’t just catalog programs or partnerships, but tells the story of the Hub’s network in a way that anyone—potential partners, funders, community members—can navigate. “We wanted it to be something you’d actually use,” Cramer says, “not just something that sits in a drawer.”

To bring these connections to life, she also developed eight “story maps,” detailed, narrative profiles of participants in Hub programs and activities. She traced where they came from, what their goals and experiences were, and how engagement with the Hub impacted their journeys, telling their stories in visual and written narratives. 

“I think it’s a really nice way to demonstrate the impact of the programs here, in all kinds of ways, and with all kinds of people,” she says.

Partnering with communities

One of the key pieces of the Hub is the Community Sensor Lab. The Lab gives people tools to build and teach others to build monitors for their own environments, from air quality sensors they install in their apartments to flood sensors placed where locals know water collects. The projects encourage active participation in real science and foster relationships based on trust. “This is not extractive research,” Cramer says. “Community members that I’ve been talking with and observing, they feel very empowered.”

Co-design is at the heart of these efforts. Cramer recalls one day sitting in the Community Sensor Lab with a member of the Hub team and two staff members from the Red Hook Initiative, a youth focused nonprofit community group. Together, they were brainstorming and planning a workshop curriculum for building air quality sensors.

“There wasn’t any ‘sage on the stage’ stuff, or even a ‘guide on the side,’” Cramer says. “Everyone was actually engaged, putting their own ideas and experiences into the discussion and shaping the next workshop in real time.” Leaders from Red Hook named what would be most useful or interesting, pointed out local challenges, and brought in their knowledge about which approaches would engage their neighbors. The Hub staffer brought technical know-how, and stepped back to truly listen.

“Watching genuine co-design in practice was astonishing, especially when done by someone skilled at listening and sharing power,” she says. “That was inspiring.”

The IlluminationSpace Hub team uses an “emergent” approach, Cramer says. “They’re not following a guidebook or an outline. They’re really trying to do genuine, authentic co-design, so you can’t know exactly where it’s going to go because at least half the equation isn’t you.”

As she embedded herself in the Hub, Cramer was struck by a major shift in her perspective. “The focus for outreach programs has always been ‘community, community, community.’ But what I really discovered in this project is that the community’s there. They know their challenges. What needs work is on the researcher side.”

Forging a path

Working on the academic side of the civic science equation is challenging. Conversations with faculty and directors brought the structural hurdles into focus for Cramer. “I kept hearing researchers say, ‘I think this is super important, and I’d love to do it, but time and budget are really challenging.’ That was a real eye-opener for me.” Even at ASRC—an institution built with civic science in its DNA—faculty struggled with the same systemic barriers around tenure, funding, and time.

“Structurally and systematically, there needs to be ways that civic science is supported on the research side,” she says. “The challenge is less about increasing outreach, and more about how scientific institutions incentivize and support this work.”

For Cramer, being part of a cohort of Fellows, working on similar challenges, meeting for weekly learning labs, and supporting each other, helps them cope with the complexity and uncertainty of the work. “Slowly, everybody realizes that they’re not the only ones who don’t quite know what they’re doing,” Cramer says. “It’s a very welcoming and supportive ecosystem, a ‘come as you are, and we’ll make it work’ kind of place.”

That kind of environment encourages risk-taking and learning, both of which are assets in an emerging field. “Civic science is evolving, and it may always be evolving,” Cramer says. “That might be the very nature of the thing.” For her, that’s a strength, not a flaw—an opportunity for science and society to keep learning, listening, and growing together.

One of Cramer’s goals for her ASRC Fellowship was to develop a model for showing community connections that could be replicated. Along with the online map, she’s creating a white paper for other institutions wanting to see how they fit into their communities. “I would love for other public universities, science museums, or nonprofits to adapt this approach.” 

The case for funding work like this is stronger than ever, Cramer says. “Because there are so many urgent issues facing us, and under-resourced communities are often the ones affected the most, funders really can make a difference in helping create the support structures researchers and communities need to work together on real solutions.”

Catherine is a member of the 2024-25 Civic Science Fellows cohort. Her Fellowship was supported by the Rita Allen Foundation.