Caren is an Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program in Leadership in Public Science, as well as the assistant director of the Biodiversity Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. She is an avian ecologist and relies on citizen science to help communities use birds as indicators of environmental health. She hosts monthly chat sessions about citizen science on Twitter, and author of Citizen Science: How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery. Follow her at @CoopSciScoop