Rebekah Corlew is the director of the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellows Program. The fellowship places scientists (graduate students and postdocs) in news outlets across the country to work as science reporters for 10 weeks during the summer. The program gives fellows skills to help them communicate science outside of academia, and presents young scientists with alternative career options in science communication.
She is also the manager of the AAAS Minority Science Writers Internship. The MSWI is a summer internship program for minority students interested in journalism as a career who want to learn about science writing. Interns are placed at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of AAAS’s Science magazine, the largest interdisciplinary journal in the world.
She also organizes public outreach and engagement events, with particular focus on under-served communities, and promotes and encourages women and historically underrepresented minorities in science. For example, she coordinates AAAS Science Days: In the Classroom.
Corlew joined AAAS in 2016 from her position at Max Planck Florida Institute (MPFI) for Neuroscience. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009 and started a postdoctoral fellowship in the Neurobiology department at Duke University. In 2011 she became a Research Scientist II at MPFI and launched the MPFI Postbac Research Experience Fellowship and also served the institute as the Lead Public Engagement Scientist.