New Perspectives in Science Education

Sarah Carroll is a PhD student in her second year, in the department of Biochemistry at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research is centered around informal science education, specifically on the effect of scientist demonstrators in outreach on children’s science self-efficacy. Sarah's PhD work is co-supervised by Dr Grenon from the School of Natural Sciences, and Dr McCauley from the School of Education, both based at NUI Galway. She graduated in 2015 from NUI Galway with a first class honours B.Sc in Biotechnology.
Sarah is one of the founding members of Cell EXPLORERS (www.cellexplorers.com), a science education and outreach programme based in the School of Natural Sciences at NUI Galway. In 2012, during the first year of her undergraduate degree, she was one of the student partners to pilot the Cell EXPLORERS programme, as part of an EXPLORE initiative, in collaboration with Dr Grenon. Sarah remained a highly invested and committed volunteer with Cell EXPLORERS and gained the position of Volunteer Coordinator intern for the NUI Galway team in 2014. After graduating, she returned to this position in 2016 in tandem with starting her PhD. Her responsibilities as Volunteer Coordinator include recruitment, training and management of a volunteer base of 100+, and event coordination in association with the national coordinator and director.