The tech startup culture born in the ’90s has given rise to all kinds of entrepreneurial offshoots, including what rising senior Callie Clayton 17 TX refers to as “citizen science.” As one of this summer’s 10 Maraham STEAM Fellows, Clayton is interning at an innovation hub in Brooklyn: Genspace, one of 30 community bio-labs that have sprung up across the country.
Open to science teachers, businesspeople, journalists and other amateur scientists, Genspace offers affordable access to a lab where people can conduct individual research. Clayton has already met a visiting designer exploring how sound waves affect the growth of Kombucha (fermented tea) and an industrial designer working on biogenetically generated materials for use in home goods, such as lampshades.
“What I’m really interested in is how little government regulation there is around citizen science,” says Clayton. “That allows for a lot of innovation.”