AMERICANWAY

COURTESY SCIENCE CHEERLEADER EDUCATION Brown has cheered for the Atlanta Falcons and the Sacramento Kings. You can't miss her. Tall and athletic, with long, bright-red ha ir. You — or maybe it 's just me — a lso might not be able to understand her when she's t a l k i ng about her lab work t r y i ng t o b i o e n g i n e e r r e p l a c e m e nt c a r t i l a g e for m i l it a r y ser v ice members who have lost ca r tilage to injuries a nd subsequent surgeries. Brow n believes scientists w ill somed ay d i sc over a w ay t o f u l ly r epa i r damaged car tilage and improve the qua l- ity of life for people who would other wise su f fer f rom pa in a nd joint degeneration. " It 's possible we'l l be able to accomplish t h at i n my l i fet i me," she say s. " But it 's dif f icult, because ever y time the science on that advances, the next set of problems you encounter seems to split of f a nd get more complex. It's like a fractal, you know?" SPREADING CHEER: Joanna Tippett, geologist and former cheerleader for the Baltimore Ravens (2011-2014), at the Philadelphia Science Festival No, I don't. Not even a little. But I sus- pect the young girl with the polka-dot bow in her hair who interrupts our conversation might at least have a shot at figuring out all that fractal stuff. The girl is holding playing cards featuring many of the dozen Science Cheerleaders who have come out to the fes- tival, and she is trying to get an autograph from each one. That kind of reaction from girls is the last thing Cavalier expected when she got a group of Science Cheerleaders together for their first performance at this same USA Science and Engineering Festival in 2010. At that time, Cavalier was only focused on promot- ing something called "citizen science." That's a movement aimed at connecting individuals with scientists and ongoing research proj- ects. The idea is to help nonscientists find meaningful ways to contribute to scientific research — an increasingly important objec- tive at a time when science and public policy are becoming more intertwined — and to help scientists collect more data by drawing on volunteer help to, say, collect earthbound "But then there were these long lines of little girls and their parents wanting AUTOGRAPHS from the Science Cheerleaders." 60 N OV E M B E R 2 01 4 A A .CO M/A M E R I C A NWAY De veloped by

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