Dear friends,

As Public Lab enters our tenth year, I will be leaving my role as Executive Director to pursue my own next steps, with the goal of making room for new leadership and growth amongst our dynamic nonprofit team. I have high hopes for how Public Lab will transition into our second decade, bringing new ideas and opportunities for the community.

Transitioning out at this moment, with the uncertainty of COVID-19 around us, is not easy, but I'm happy to share that during the transition period, Stevie Lewis, our senior program director who has been a core member of our staff for the last six years, will be acting as interim executive director. Through December 2020, I will be staying on as an organization advisor to support Public Lab through the transition period. The hiring committee to fill my position is being led by board member Mike Ma, and we expect to have identified a new executive director by fall 2020.

Looking back to April 2010, I'll never forget the initial moments of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or the collaborative spirit in which we all came together to figure out solutions to document the impact. It is this spirit that has driven our collective work and led to some of the greatest collaborations I've ever experienced. In those ten years, we saw the possibility to employ technological infrastructure, scaling the ability of people to collaborate on environmental problems with others in ways that hadn't been done before. I experienced collaborations with hundreds of people around the world working on addressing topics such as mining, oil extraction, water quality, and wetland health. I also witnessed the growth of the community science movement, which has amplified the ability for people to use science to advocate on behalf of the places they care about. Over the past decade, our nonprofit budget has grown from several thousand dollars to over one million, supporting the infrastructure, staff, and partnerships that make our collective work possible. All of this happened because of the community, and I'm grateful to you all for working to create our reality.

I am departing my position (but not the community!) with Public Lab at a point where we've never been stronger, and for this I'm truly happy. With a clearly articulated vision and strategy, incredible staff, a strong community, and a supportive board of directors, I know we're well set-up to take Public Lab into the next ten years. The Executive Director position will be posted in the next several weeks. If you or someone you know has the passion, dedication, and experience to take Public Lab into the next decade, we'd love to hear from you. More on this soon.

For now, it's been a pleasure to serve this community. I'm thankful for the amazing journey we've gone on together, and the opportunity to learn and grow with all of you! I'm here for the movement we've built, our collective drive to see a healthier future, and looking forward to watching Public Lab, our partners, and collaborators thrive and grow.

Shannon
P.S. It's April 2020 and that means it's Public Lab's 10th anniversary! Please consider supporting our work as we celebrate a decade and look forward to the future.