This Thanksgiving, We’re Grateful for NASA’s Amateur Scientists!

26 November, 2024

A group of smiling people in cold-weather gear and life jackets pose on a boat surrounded by icy waters. They are holding scientific equipment, including a plankton net and collection bottles, with yellow bins and an orange traffic cone visible in the foreground.

FjordPhyto participants playing in an incredible phytoplankton bloom surrounded by early season sea ice at Damoy on the Antarctic Peninsula. They share knowledge with one another and take samples to better understand and protect Antarctica.

Allison Cusick

This year, we’re giving thanks to you for Doing NASA Science! You and the millions of other volunteers have enabled an incredible banquet of discoveries—by taking data, analyzing data, writing code, writing papers, and even inventing your own science projects. Your work helps us maintain our leadership in space science!

Our scientists have shared examples of many outstanding volunteers. Here are just a few of the remarkable amateur scientists/citizen scientists whose help we’re so grateful for:

Dani Abras from the FjordPhyto project.

“Dani Abras has been an exemplary facilitator of the FjordPhyto program with travelers in Antarctica. Her enthusiasm for engaging people in the natural world is infectious and her love of participatory science draws people into the wonderful microscopic world of phytoplankton. She is a very enthusiastic and engaged Expedition Guide and you might even see her featured in our new online training course on the NASA Infiniscope platform.” –Allison Cusick

Mr. Kevvy from the “Are we Alone in the Universe?” project.

“Mr. Kevvy goes above and beyond as a moderator of `Are we alone in the universe?’. He is always reaching out to me and letting me know what our volunteers have been experiencing, as well as going out of his way to look for other collaborations our project might be interested in. His insight is always extremely helpful, and many of his ideas have made it into our final products. I enjoy working with him and am grateful for his support.” –Megan Li

Nicholas Brereton, Emmanuel Gonzalez, and Stefan Green from the Genelab Microbes Analysis Working Group.

“Over the course of ~6 years, the open-access data in NASA GeneLab/Open Science Data Repository was mined by this 100% volunteer group in the Microbes Analysis Working Group, which resulted in this recent publication: Spaceflight alters host-gut microbiota interactions All authors in the publication could/should get kudos, but especially the ones listed above who saw it through” –Ryan Scott

Want to join this illustrious group and make a lasting mark on NASA science? You’ll find opportunities here at https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/. Happy Thanksgiving!