Communicating Chemistry Through Social Media

The variety of these chapters ranges from qualitative or mixed methods studies to how-to guides and narratives. There are chapters that explain social media usage in academia, industry, grants, and professional organizations. Some chapters focus on a teaching model, others extend the focus to encompass personal and professional social media usage. Most chapters were contributed by current chemists who use social media, but some were contributed by those with a different perspective (e.g., social scientists, librarians, etc.). Nevertheless, all of the chapters provide a great deal of wisdom, which is built from the experience of using social media.

These chapters also touch on emerging themes within social media communication: transformation and ethics issues including digital redlining, digital pedagogy, digital identity, curation, hypervisibility, and trolling. These themes form both a rich body of discussion and current research topics regarding online environments, including social media, and they have not yet achieved saturation in peer-reviewed literature.

Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh has been teaching full time as a permanent chemistry faculty member at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) since 2002. She teaches a broad array of chemistry classes in several different formats, including distance (blended) and active learning. She is the recipient of several teaching awards at CNM, including the JGB Award for Teaching Innovation and the Women-In-Non-Traditional Careers Employee Advocate award. She has served as chemistry department chair, NIH IRACDA/ASERT subaward PI (private investigator), CNM Institutional Research Board member, and as a chemistry department liaison to the University of New Mexico (UNM). Clarissa is currently a graduate student in both statistics (M.S.) and Learning Sciences (PhD) at UNM.

Dr. Tanya Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at South Dakota State University. Her research interests focus on development and integration of simulations and games; guided-inquiry based curriculum for interdisciplinary science instruction, and Eye-tracking methodology to study student problem solving behavior. She did her postdoc at Grand Valley State University on Target-Inquiry Program. Dr. Gupta also serves as a member of the American Chemical Society's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education and NSTAs College Science Teaching Committee.