CosmoQuest has lost one if its founding community researchers. On Tuesday, December 10, 2013 Dr. Michael Gibbs passed away. There aren’t enough words to express how much he will be missed. His brother is working to arrange a celebration of his life, and in this blog post we want to celebrate the things that Michael, a researcher who lurked largely behind the scenes here at CosmoQuest, meant to us.

Michael has been working on a variety of research projects with Georgia and I since 2007. He has always been eager to find ways to answer questions about how to get people to learn and was always game to explore new technologies and new ideas. Our first research paper together looked at how college students listen to podcasts. We were trying to understand if podcasting was an effective way to reach college students with science. From this study to writing a grant together, our collaboration and our friendship grew. Our first grant, to create a content index of science podcasts, was turned down (confusingly, one of the reasons was because we didn’t include enough partners – like a networks of science museums – to distribute podcasts…). While I took this bizarroland grant review with something that could only kindly be called extreme grumpiness, Michael was forever positive, and as we threw ourselves into planning our own initiatives for the International Year of Astronomy, and our own next career steps, we started looking at other ideas.

In 2010, Michael and I once again set about to try and understand ways to engage people in learning and doing science. With partners – Doris Daou and David Gibson – we started formulating the program that would become CosmoQuest’s Guerrilla astronomy program. When we found out in the fall of 2011 that we were funded, we started planning CosmoQuest. You know where that story has gone. You’re here. Together we’re doing and learning science.

Thank you, Michael. I’m not sure I said that enough.

And Michael, Georgia and I… we’ve drawn in new collaborators, welcoming Nicole Gugliucci to do Guerrilla Astronomy, and Sanyln Buxner to help with educating educators here in the United States.

And Michael and I; we’ve just kept planning and building.

I last talked to Michael a couple weeks ago. He was getting ready to start a new phase of his life as he took a new position at the Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary. Animal Science is one of my side interests, and tiger rescue is one of his passions, and we were looking forward to planning sister programs to CosmoQuest that would take tigers by the tail, teeth, and anything else that would help us understand their feline brains as we asked people to watch them. We were finally going to live fairly near to one another, and organizing new programs was going to be all that much easier.

But on Tuesday he died, while he was still so full of life.

Michael lived so many moments trying to get people learning and doing science. He did this in a lot of different ways: as a teacher, as a researcher, as a facilitator, as someone who helped projects raise funding, and as someone who could lead. He often served in administrative roles. Not everyone is meant for academic politics or politics in general – I’m sure as heck not – and he recognized his skills and served in roles where he could help other leaders be more successful, and in roles where he could help science organizers better succeed. He was understanding of my weakness in politics, and he was often a mentor who helped me keep my head on straight when academia was getting the better of me. I learned a lot from his leadership training and experience. I was (am) the often socially awkward techno geek, the person attached to a keyboard who would help him see new potential ways to communicate science and explore the relationship between science and society. I’d like to think what I taught him about tech was as useful as what he taught me about politics, but I’m pretty sure I got the better end of this collaboration. I can only hope that his advise will continue to ring in my memory, and that he’ll be one of the voices in my head that helps me be a better leader.

Life is filled with accidents and statistical improbabilities. That is all I will say on how he died.

The CosmoQuest team is one man smaller today. We will always celebrate his life. I know his role was largely hidden from the public, and I’m speaking of a stranger to many of you. Still – we are here because of him.  I would invite you to celebrate his life with us. Do science. Help someone learn something they didn’t know yesterday. And, when you look toward the sky next time, raise a glass to Science (he liked Arnold-Palmers, and we’d toast successes with fine wines or whiskey).

Michael, you are missed.