As part of its “First Person” feature series, Karen Oates, a co-founder of the SENCER project, and one of the speakers on a plenary panel about communities of transformation at the upcoming 2017 SENCER Summer Institute, spoke with American Scientist about innovation. Specifically, she talked about how she has worked to make learning experiences and environments more innovative in ways that impact both educators and learners. One example of this innovation, which relates to the main idea of the SENCER project, is her teaching of basic cell biology course using the topic of cancer. In addition to delivering the basic cell biology content, the course was more relevant to students because it dealt with an issue which affected every one of them in some manner. You can read the full interview with Karen at the American Scientist website. You can also view the full July-August issue of American Scientist here.