Daniella Scalice, Education and Communication Lead for the NASA Astrobiology Program, visits New Zealand

Daniella Scalice, Education and Communication Lead for the NASA Astrobiology Program visited New Zealand in October 2018. She attended the 2018 Te Ao Marama Meeting in Auckland and spent a few days in Wellington from 20-23 of October.

Ms. Scalice holds a Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from UC Santa Cruz, and worked in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School researching nervous system development. After pursuing an MFA in film production at Humboldt State University, in 2001 she joined the team at the NASA Astrobiology Program, and continues to lead all NASA Astrobiology education, outreach, and communications projects. http://astrobiology.nasa.gov

In 2005 she and her Diné colleagues co-founded the “NASA and the Navajo Nation” initiative, an ongoing collaboration that has produced classroom materials, teacher trainings, and student summer camps which weave together Western scientific and Navajo Cultural knowledge. Ms. Scalice also currently leads an international Working Group of Native and non-Native scientists and educators across NASA and beyond who work in Native communities, and is part of emerging collaborations with Native educators in New Mexico, Minnesota, South Dakota, Toronto, and the Pacific Northwest. She has led a science communication training program for early career scientists called FameLab, and co-developed an Impact Assessment Method that facilitates the assessment of participant impact of educational programs. Ms. Scalice currently lives with her family on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and stewards a 16-acre farm in Northern New Mexico where she hopes to one day make her home.