Dr. Sunshine Menezes of the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. Photo by Autumn Walter.
Dr. Sunshine Menezes has a lot of interests.
Thankfully, she has found a place at the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting that incorporates everything that she cares about. There, Menezes combines her love of oceanography, science communication and environmental reporting into a well-rounded career.
Menezes pursued a degree in zoology before completing a doctorate in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island in 2005. However, Menezes soon found that she wanted to expand her work beyond the classroom.
“I got my Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) here at URI and I realized after three or four years doing my research, which I really enjoyed, that I was spending a lot of time in dark rooms,” said Menezes. “I didn’t feel that it was the best use of me. I’m a very social person and I wanted to be doing something that I was sure was something big and was having a positive impact in the world.”
This new calling inspired Menezes to take the position of the executive director of the Metcalf Institute in 2007. She previously worked for several years on state-level environmental policy in Rhode Island as well as for a senator in Washington D.C.
“The Metcalf Institute is focused on helping journalists and scientists be more effective communicators in their respective spheres,” said Menezes. “I am responsible for fundraising in the Metcalf Institute and we are primarily supported by grants and donations.”
Menezes has worked with URI as a staff member in association with the Metcalf Institute since 2005, but a major change occurred in 2017. The Metcalf Institute moved from the GSO to the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. The move resulted in Menezes becoming a clinical associate professor there.
Upon making the move into teaching at URI, Menezes has instituted several training techniques from the Metcalf Institute into her courses at URI.
“I apply things from Metcalf Institute training, and especially relate to ways to be an effective communicator and the importance of journalistic coverage to environmental issues directly into my class,” Menezes said.
Environmental science and management graduate student Elise Mason has taken two courses with Menezes and sees her as very personal. According to Mason, Menezes is someone who wants students to form opinions on the topics they discussed in class.
“Her teaching style is very open and conversational,” said Mason. “She really wants to hear your point of view and how you react to the readings that she has assigned and she wants to facilitate a discussion and then relay the information through that.”
Menezes’s greatest achievement at the Metcalf Institute was a symposium hosted at URI known as the Inclusive SciComm Symposium.
“By creating this conference, this was the first time in the U.S. that the very wide variety of disciplines and settings for inclusive science communication could come together and learn from one another,” said Menezes.
One of the goals that Menezes has for the near future is to bring the Metcalf Institute more thoroughly into the URI Kingston Campus in the future.
“We are trying to make sure that the Metcalf Institute is really integrated across URI,” said Menezes. “Especially since we’ve moved from the main campus to the Bay Campus, I spent a lot of time meeting with faculty and staff across URI to think about ways that we can be working across departments and colleges.”