Announcing the Newest Cohort of Sandbox Fellows
The Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture (SSC) division is pleased to announce the second round of the Sandbox Fellowship, building on the momentum and success of the program’s inaugural cohort. The fellowships provide robust capacity-building support for select organizations funded through the SSC’s Science Sandbox initiative, which supports innovative approaches to public engagement with science. The support will help strengthen the organizations as they stabilize their foundations and amplify their impact.
The Sandbox Fellowship recognizes that the early- and mid-stage organizations supported through Science Sandbox need more than just financial resources to thrive. Our awardees are navigating pivotal stages of development, and they are confronted each day with the challenge of overseeing programs and directly supporting their communities while working to stabilize and build long-term strategies. We respond directly to these needs with programming that centers our grantees and fosters collaboration, such as the Sandbox Fellowship, our annual Science, Society & Culture Awardee Summit, and leadership development opportunities.
The Sandbox Fellowship reflects our commitment to providing bespoke, responsive capacity-building support. Fellows are selected on an application basis from within the Science Sandbox community for their demonstrated promise and readiness to take their organizations to the next level of maturity. This newest cohort builds on the example of our first four fellows, whose experience set the stage for what this class of five can expect to achieve.
Over the next nine months, the new crop of fellows will participate in a dynamic curriculum designed to strengthen organizational resilience. The program equips fellows with tools to refine strategy, reinforce financial sustainability and embed equity throughout their work. The curriculum is bolstered by mentorship, expert-led sessions and discretionary funding to boost fellows’ operational capacity.
With guidance and leadership from SSC Senior Program Manager Kelsa Trom and the rest of the SSC team, the fellowship is crafted, refined and facilitated by strategy consultants Brooke Richie-Babbage and Jack Graham, who also stewarded the inaugural program. As previous nonprofit leaders themselves, Brooke Richie-Babbage and Jack Graham know firsthand the grit and heart it takes to set up a mission-based organization for the long haul.
The new fellows are:
Chidi Asoluka, founder and CEO, NewComm
Stephanie Dowdy-Nava, M.A., co-founder, ART±BIO Collaborative
Whitney Gaskins, Ph.D., founder, Gaskins Foundation
Robert W. Fernandez, PhD., co-founder and executive director, Cientifico Latino, Inc.
Suzanne Pierre, Ph.D., founder and executive director, Critical Ecology Lab
