Tamara Poles is the Director of Programs at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. Tamara is responsible for operations of a broad array of programs that support researchers in all disciplines from high school to emeritus. Professional development opportunities include but are not limited to grants, workshops, trainings, and networking. Tamara received her Bachelor of Science degree from Roanoke College, Virginia, and her Master of Education with concentration in Curriculum and Instruction from Averett University, Virginia.
Prior to joining Sigma Xi, Tamara held the position of Community Engagement Specialist at the University of North Carolina’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, where she conceptualized and implemented North Carolina’s first statewide adult science communication curriculum and training program, IMPACTS. Her work with this 4-year project changed the lives of more than 500 diverse scientists across the state, as she trained them in the art of science communication and coordinated a myriad of community events for them throughout the state. Thanks to her, more than 17,000 schoolchildren got to meet and interact with scientists who looked and sounded like them, from their own neighborhoods and beyond, and learned that they could be scientists too. In total, the IMPACTS scientists engaged over 48,000 North Carolinians in less than 4 years.
Her work with the IMPACTS program resulted national and international recognition in addition to a $1 million grant from the NC GlaxoSmithKline Foundation to fund FUTURES, a collaboration with community colleges to train scientists how to share their personal STEM stories with the public. You can read her most recent peer-reviewed publication, Beads and ‘Biomes: A Hands-On Classroom Activity for Understanding the Effects of Antibiotics on the Microbiome in the December 2021 volume of The American Biology Teacher.