FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | August 12, 2015

American Chemical Society to host popular vote for Chemistry Champion communicator

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12, 2015 — Four early-career chemists will compete this week in Boston to see who best communicates science to the public. The competition is the final round of the American Chemical Society’s (ACS’) Chemistry Champions contest. The contestants will compete in two public and two closed events over three days. At the public events, audiences can cast votes for their favorite performer. The winner will be selected based on the total combined votes from all four events taking place in Boston.  

The four finalists are Dave Farina of Los Angeles; Erica Lewis of Atlanta; Hadi Fares, a graduate student at Florida State University (Tallahassee); and Tierra Range, an undergraduate student at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana. The finalists have already made it through three rounds of competition, which started with a group of 16 contestants who entered via YouTube in April 2015 (http://bit.ly/chemchamps2015).

TOPIC: ACS Chemistry Champions Finals live public performances

EVENT 1

DATE: Saturday, Aug. 15

TIME: 12:30 p.m. ET

LOCATION: Gordon Current Science & Technology Center, Blue Wing, Level 1, Museum of Science, Boston

LIVE STREAM: Not available

EVENT 2:

DATE: Monday, Aug. 17

TIME: 7 p.m. ET (doors open 6:30 p.m.)

LOCATION: District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston. Attendees RSVP via Eventbrite at http://bit.ly/ChCh2015tix with entrance guaranteed to the first 150 ticketed attendees.

LIVE STREAM:  http://bit.ly/ChCh2015final (broadcast begins at 7 p.m. ET)

The second event will include a panel of three expert science communicators providing feedback on each finalist’s performance. The experts are Julie Fooshee, coordinator of the Science Festival Alliance at the MIT Museum; Stephen Lyons, a Boston-based independent filmmaker who has written and produced documentaries for the PBS science series NOVA; and Kiki Sanford, Ph.D., host of This Week in Science www.twis.org.

The Chemistry Champion wins a trip to Washington, D.C., to shoot an ACS Reactions video www.youtube.com/user/ACSReactions and meet with professional science communicators. The winner will also join the National Academy of Science’s The Science and Entertainment Exchange and participate in a future event connecting science communicators with members of the entertainment industry.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive press releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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