Center Highlights | New MIT SRP Website Launch

May 29, 2024

The team of Dr. Clara Chow (MIT SRP), Sarah Boyd (Academic Web Pages, Inc.), Dr. Moala Bannavti (MIT SRP), and Dr. Bevin Engelward (MIT SRP Director) created a new website for the MIT Superfund Research Program, with contributions from MIT faculty, Core Leaders, and SRP trainees.  To have the broadest beneficial impact, the goal of the new website was to be inclusive by serving as a resource for all stakeholders and communities.  To accomplish this, several unique website features now provide lessons learned and creative research translation for facilitating collaboration, community engagement, bidirectional discussions, and methods for finding environmental solutions.  One such website feature to promote collaboration is a dedicated page with links to all universities that have Superfund Research Programs.  Another website feature addresses the diverse interest and scientific backgrounds of the audience by describing the SRP projects in both technical and lay language.  Following that mission of serving multiple audiences, the website using creative research translation put forth a series of 3-minute videos with closed captions by our eight MIT SRP trainees.  The trainees describe their groundbreaking research in a storytelling fashion to show the tangible nature of their work in protecting public health to non-experts.  Ultimately, as a resource to share knowledge, the greatest effect is when SRPs partner with community organizations.  As such, an added and equally important feature of this website is a page specifically devoted to communities.  This interactive community informational section addresses the needs of the public and their communities that are facing environmental challenges by offering practical guidance from real-world experiences to help them tackle specific public health issues.  Taken together, the new MIT SRP website provides resources that are helpful to stakeholders from sister SRPs, government agencies, tribal nations, and communities.