*Join us in person at our upcoming MACH annual meeting to hear the latest updates on MACH news and research.*
Education & Outreach
Documentary Films
The documentary film team completed their first film, “RETREAT: Marine Field Station”. The film will be shown on Wednesday, May 28th, at the MACH Annual Meeting.
Community College Engagement
- In the fall 2024 semester, the community college (CC) engagement team has facilitated three events at community colleges: two “Ask a Grad Student Panels” and one “Lunch and Learn,” reaching over 120 students and engaging seven MACH grad students and postdocs.
- In the spring 2025 semester, the “Community College Climate Communicator” project was launched. This interdisciplinary project introduced community college students to MACH research and challenged them to create art inspired by MACH research to serve as a climate communication tools for MACH research.
- MACH’s community college engagement work was presented at the 2024 annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in Washington, DC.
The above images show MACH-inspired climate art created by community college students & displayed at Rutgers Day.
Stakeholder Engagement
Philadelphia & Camden County:
- Since the last news update, the stakeholder engagement efforts of MACH have focused on continued relationships with our Philadelphia stakeholders, working to expand our connections and work with Camden County stakeholders, and supporting researchers in their connections to other New Jersey communities.
- In August the Stakeholder Engagement Team kicked off the implementation of many items in the MACH Coproduction and Translation plan, specifically to create a MACH communications strategy and plan, to hire an external contractor to support that work, and to reinforce the need for MACH focus areas to be incorporating the potential needs from stakeholders into their research moving forward.
- The MACH CSAP and GAC each met in November 2024, and conversations about new (to MACH) research on extreme heat/humid heat as well as connections with the National Fish and Wildlife Service began.
New York City:
- Since 2023, MACH has been helping to facilitate a dialogue among researchers working in the space of coastal climate hazards and the US Army Corps of Engineers (US ACE) to bring a convening together that would help inform the US ACE NYNJ Harbor and Tributary Study (NYNJ HATS).
External Evaluation
Since the last news update, the SERC external evaluation team has:
- Continued to participate in and observe regular MACH project meetings, reviewing project activities and products for alignment with the MACH principles of engagement.
- Successfully launched and completed a Social Network Analysis survey to document how the MACH network has continued to grow.
- Ultimately, 45% of the 239 people invited to participate completed the survey. An additional 24 started but did not finish the survey for a total of 57% complete or partial responses.
- Initiated evaluation activities in two new areas, including evaluation of the MACH workforce development plan implementation and of the community college partnership programming.
- Presented a poster at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC: Iverson, E. R. & Vachta, K. E. (2024). Principles-guided Co-production: Evaluating How the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) is Working to Transform Climate Research.