Dilane Anner Mitchell: Senior Practicum| BCCSO| Communications Assistant

For the last year, I have been working as a communications assistant for the NASA University Research Center at Howard University, Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation (BCCSO). As such, I am responsible for their social networking. I manage both their Facebook and Twitter accounts. I use Facebook to spread any important information, announce upcoming opportunities, through the URC or through NASA, invite the community to events, including flyers as JPEGs. I also post photos I have taken of the grant’s students and administrators while they complete research presentations at various events. I have increased the number of friends and interactions with said friends by at least 15 percent (Appendix 1).

As a communications assistant, I help the rest of the staff host outreach events. The largest of which was our Technical Review Committee Meeting on March, 30, 2012. The meeting was hosted online via Blackboard Collaborate. I assisted my supervisor by helping monitor the meeting, recording the sessions, and guiding traffic through each of the three sessions. Guided by my supervisor, I recently created a report including all the data from outreach, including both Facebook and Twitter for the annual Technical Review Committee meeting (Appendix 2a, 2b, 2c).

Also, I created a YouTube page for the HU NASA URC. Currently, there are several videos uploaded to our YouTube Channel, including a photo presentation I also created for the TRC called, "A Snapshot of BCCSO"(Appendix 3).

Appendix 1: Howard University NASA URC Facebook

Appendix 2: Slide samples from the presentation I compiled for the 2012 Technical Review Committee meeting. I and my advisor compiled the presentation in order to show the committee all the outreach events we hosted throughout the year. I took all the pictures included in these samples.