Title: Public Engagement as a Physics Practice: Identity, Community, and Building the Infrastructure for Impact

Abstract: Public engagement or, as it is more commonly known, “outreach” often lives at the periphery of physics departments, something some do in their “free” time. Yet many physicists and students facilitate informal programs. But what do we know about how these efforts work, what they produce, what they require to be effective and equitable and what they do to the people who facilitate them?

In this talk, I synthesize research linking public engagement to identity development in physics and to the structures that sustain informal programs. I show how facilitating engagement can foster discipline-based identity, and how this identity development matters not only for participants, but also for facilitators, with implications for physics culture and student retention. I then connect these mechanisms to research mapping and characterizing informal physics programs, showing that outcomes hinge less on any single activity than on the relationships, roles, and organizational structures that support participation over time. I close this research synthesis by translating it into practical design principles that shift engagement from one-way outreach toward bidirectional, community-responsive practice.

Finally, I share how these insights inform the work at the American Physical Society, where we build structures that help physicists engage and keep engaging, through efforts such as JNIPER, the Science Trust Project, and PhysicsQuest.