MAPSCORPS - Meaningful, Active, Productive Science in Service to Communities
We train youth to produce and understand high-quality data about community assets that everyone can use to improve the human condition.
Meaningful Youth Employment
High school and college students are employed as community researchers. We train them to apply research methods while utilizing technology to collect data about their community area, collecting publicly available datasets, research the effects of historical events and policies on their community area, and draw meaningful conclusions that can be used to advocate for positive community change.
From more than 30 years, we’ve been leading the way across Oklahoma — creating the best possible customer experience since 1989.
All our products — whether we make them or not — are backed by our lifetime warranty.
All our products — whether we make them or not — are backed by our lifetime warranty.
All our products — whether we make them or not — are backed by our lifetime warranty.
All our products — whether we make them or not — are backed by our lifetime warranty.
MAPSCorps youth researchers become confident and capable communicators, reaching high standards as they develop college and career readiness skills. Youth are challenged to apply their best critical thinking skills to the scientific, health, and civic engagement components of the MAPSCorps experience while building strong bonds with other members of their research team.
More VideosMAPSCorps is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based on Chicago’s South Side. The organization was born out of the South Side Health and Vitality Studies, a research laboratory directed by Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, MAPP, at the University of Chicago Urban Health Initiative. Dr. Lindau’s interdisciplinary lab used an asset-based, community engaged approach to engineer solutions to injustice.
The lab’s collaboration with a broad range of community stakeholders and university researchers gave life to the MAPSCorps program in 2009 – a program which has continued to provide meaningful work experience and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Health) training to high school youth.
MAPSCorps became an independent nonprofit in 2016, running successful programs not only across nearly half of Chicago, IL, but also among several ZIP codes of Harlem and the Bronx in New York City, NY. Since then, our programs have expanded to Detroit, MI, Niagara Falls, NY, Hilo and Honolulu, HI, and the counties of Nash, Edgecombe, and Watauga in North Carolina. MAPSCorps has even helped inspire similar programs internationally, such as the Local Asset Mapping Program in the Liberties area of Dublin, Ireland.
In 2023, MAPSCorps joined Northwestern University’s Digital Youth Network. The laboratory was founded by Nichole Pinkard, PhD, and her co-founder Akili Lee, MS, in 2005 with the goal of designing learning systems that ensure all youth, especially those who are underserved, cultivate the critical skills, literacies, and agency necessary to have the opportunity to live lives that are engaged, empowered, and successful. The MAPSCorps program trains high school youth to produce and transform high-quality data about community assets while creating meaningful insights to identify community strengths and develop ways to affect positive change in their community area. Continue to explore below to learn about our organization’s goals, meet our dedicated team members, and discover how you can get involved in MAPSCorps.
Associate Director PhD, MS, MA
Product Manager BS
Product Manager BS
