Muriel Grenon

Dr Muriel Grenon

The Cell Explorers Programme; Promoting Science to the youth

The Cell EXPLORERS Programme (www.cellexplorers.com) is an outreach and public engagement initiative based in the School of Natural Sciences of NUI Galway. The programme promotes the research that takes place in the School of Natural Sciences and aims to engage the general public in STEM (Science Technology, Engineering & Math ) and its importance in society. 

 Dr Grenon has driven and established the very successful Cell Explorers programme. The initiative uses various interactive outreach approaches and activities, which are designed to give an insight into how scientists work on a daily basis and are linked to current scientific research. The programme promotes hands-on science and its activities include school visits, workshops at science festivals, Youth Academy science classes, holiday science camps and on-campus activities such as open days, public workshops and regional and national science fairs. In 2016, the programme had a team of 240 members, ran 40 public engagement events, directly engaging in STEM 7100 members of the public.

Dr Grenon’s work showed clear evidence of impact in society and of raising the profile of STEM and NUI Galway within the community with the outreach programme – Cell Explorers, which communicates the excitement of science to national school-aged children. Her work demonstrated clear depth and reach within the community and significant personal effort outside of routine academic work.