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The Public Engagement Project (PEP) at UMass Amherst recently announced the 2021 Public Engagement Faculty Fellows. Seven UMass faculty members from across seven departments and six colleges will draw on their substantial research records to impact policy, the work of practitioners and public debates. Among this cohort is Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, associate professor of English and director of the UMass Amherst Writing Program.

Lorimer Leonard studies how people use multiple languages to write. Her research asks why schools, workplaces or communities may overlook the rich writing practices multilingual people use in their daily lives. As a PEP fellow, Lorimer Leonard will partner with local nonprofits to write materials for education policymakers and practitioners that build on the strengths that multilingual people bring to writing situations.

Faculty fellows receive a stipend and technical training in communicating with non-academic audiences. The PEP Fellows Program facilitates connections between fellows and lawmakers on Beacon Hill and in the U.S. Congress, journalists, practitioners and others to share their research beyond the walls of academia. This is the eighth cohort of Public Engagement Faculty Fellows.

“Now more than ever the public wants and needs to hear from academics to make sense of the world around us, to guide decisions, and much more,” said Lisa M. Troy, director of the Public Engagement Project and associate professor in the Commonwealth Honors College and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences.“The PEP Fellowship plays a critical role in creating an interdisciplinary network of publicly engaged UMass faculty, developing skills to effectively engage in a public arena, and building relationships to share the high-quality research produced at UMass."

PEP is a faculty-driven initiative building on a collaboration of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) and the Center for Research on Families (CRF). The Public Engagement Faculty Fellowship has been made possible by generous funding from the UMass College of Education, College of Engineering, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, College of Natural Sciences, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Office of the Provost and University Relations, as well as the collaborating centers and institutes.

This article has been adapted from a story originally published on the News & Media Relations website.