YouTube's Creator in Residence program adds Dr. Raven Baxter to its alumni

Dr. Raven Baxter completed YouTube's Creator in Residence program in June 2022. Her residency began in June 2021, and her cohort's weekly sessions with YouTube product teams ran from January 5 to June 29, 2022.

Residents meet with the people who build YouTube's tools. In the company's words, "The program brings together 10 creators for a 6-month term." Each class meets weekly with YouTube engineers, product managers and designers to see projects still in development.

That month, on June 3, 2021, the YouTube Blog described it in its Innovation Series, with an editor's note by Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan. The post said the program had launched five years earlier.

YouTube asks residents for candor. "A fundamental aspect of the residency program is that we ask creators to not hold back when it comes to raising concerns or offering negative feedback," the company wrote. It credits residents with shaping the move from Studio Classic to the new YouTube Studio. Residents also tested Stories in New York in 2017, a few weeks before its scheduled launch. Over a project's development, YouTube wrote, "the Creators in Residence end up playing an ongoing, indispensable role in shaping the direction of YouTube products."

During the residency, Baxter gave a Creator Talk to her cohort. "Your talk was SUPERB and we'd love to use it as an example!" said Chelsea Bunn of YouTube's Creators-in-Residence program. Baxter has stayed in the program's alumni network since.

Baxter, wearing her name badge, poses with a fellow creator at the plant wall inside Pier 57. Photo: YouTube

On September 8, 2022, ten weeks after the residency closed, Baxter attended YouTube EduCon 2022 in New York. The gathering for educational creators took place at Pier 57, Google's office on the Hudson River. "YouTube wanted the event to be small so there were only like 150 creators there," creator Nick Lucid said in his recap video.

Lucid is one of EduCon's founders. Creators ran a large edition in 2018, and YouTube took the event over in 2019, he said. On the day of the 2022 event, YouTube Learning announced three tools for education. They were Player for Education, an ad-free embedded player for education apps, along with Courses and Quizzes.

Baxter talks with another attendee inside Pier 57 at YouTube EduCon 2022. Photo: YouTube

Baxter is a molecular biologist and science communicator who posts science videos as Dr. Raven the Science Maven. She earned her Ph.D. at the University at Buffalo, where her research focused on science communication.

YouTube's profile of the Creator in Residence program is on the YouTube Blog.