The SENS Foundation Academic Initiative’s new structure is actively in the process of being implemented, and involves a number of significant changes. Among these are the separation of the Initiative into branches, an updated membership system that allows students to become involved more easily and in more ways, the creation of volunteer committees, and the addition of outreach projects to the Initiative’s activities. A brief summary of these changes follows.

Branches

There will be three branches: Research, Outreach, and Education. The Research branch will be focused on the actual accomplishment of scientific research. This research will always be done with an eye to publication, but its most important function will be to provide our students with learning experiences, to help them develop into career scientists. The Outreach branch will be focused on spreading the word about the Academic Initiative and about the SENS Foundation, while the Education branch will be focused on educating students about science and SENS.

Membership

People involved with the Academic Initiative will be divided into three groups: staff, volunteers, and members. Staff will be employees of the SENS Foundation, while volunteers will be people who serve on committees that support and assist our students. Members will be students, mentors, and even professors: those who might be actively engaged in completing research, doing outreach, or learning about SENS. Students will no longer need to have a research project in order to join the Initiative, so we will be able to integrate more members into the program.

Committees

Volunteer-based committees that are already active include the Literature Review Guidance Committee, which guides and assists students who are working on literature reviews, and the Web Recon Committee, which searches for valuable online resources that can help our students. Other committees that will be forming include the Editorial Committee, which will review student manuscripts and provide feedback, and the Campus Outreach Committee, which will help to create outreach projects and foster the development of student groups.

Outreach Projects

While the Academic Initiative has long helped students to complete research projects, it has not done much in the past to encourage students to be advocates of the Initiative and the SENS Foundation. This will change with the implementation of outreach projects. These will generally be simple, off-the-shelf projects that students can finish in an afternoon, such as printing fliers from a pre-made template and distributing them at their university. These projects will not be considered to be entirely complete, though, until their impact has been analyzed, such that we might learn what methods are most effective.

New Policies 

The Academic Initiative is implementing and will implement a number of new policies. These include a “Project Registration” policy that will allow students to formally “register” their projects with the Initiative, that we might bring more rejuvenation-related projects into the Initiative, even if these projects themselves do not come from ideas generated by SENSFAI mentors. An “Open Phone” policy will also go into effect, such that members of the Initiative will always be able to contact the Academic Coordinator. Finally, all members will have a voice chat with the Academic Coordinator upon entry to the Initiative. This last policy has already been implemented retroactively.

More updates and changes are in the works. If you would like to stay up-to-date, you can join the Academic Initiative’s email list here. 

We can always use more volunteers, students, mentors, and researchers. If you would like to become involved with the Initiative, you should contact the Interim Academic Coordinator, Daniel Kimbel, at daniel dot kimbel at sens dot org.