Dr Natalie Whitehead

Personal statement:

I’m one of the Founders and Directors of Exeter Science Centre, an education charity working across the South West to educate, motivate and empower people to make a difference in the world.

We work across the South West, running projects and events to connect the public with research and industry linked to global issues – so that we can all work together to tackle them. In parallel, we have ambitions to create a network of science discovery centres in the South West, beginning in Exeter and Barnstaple (North Devon), to house our organisation and reach more people more regularly.

Key topic areas of research or interest:

We primarily engage the general public with research being carried out in the South West of the UK, although through our work we are keen to contribute to research ourselves.

So far, this includes a Phage Therapy citizen science project (https://exetersciencecentre.org/citizen-phage-library-publication/),
public involvement in research around spine health (https://boneandjoint.org.uk/Article/10.1302/1358-992X.2024.15.031)
and we are currently supporting with research into the thermal benefits of a living wall on our office building (https://exetersciencecentre.org/new-project-livingwalls-for-netzero/).

Collaboration opportunities:

Our main beneficiaries are the general public in the South West, and we are always looking for opportunities to connect people to local research – there’s more about how we do this here: https://exetersciencecentre.org/work/researchers. We would also be very interested to collaborate with researchers or organisations further afield (and in any subject) on work related to global issues.

We also offer training for staff and students in public engagement, including how to work meaningfully with communities, and how to create exhibitions, activities and experiences around your work.

We are very keen for our work to contribute to research, around e.g. behavioural change, informal education or public engagement methods, citizen science – however we can be useful!

We would also love to work with social scientists (and anybody else) to make our work better.

Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss any collaboration opportunities.

Publications:

Google Scholar