Citizen science creates a nexus between science and education that, when coupled with emerging technologies, expands the frontiers of ecological research and public engagement. Using representative technologies and other examples, we examine the future of citizen science in terms of its research processes, program and participant cultures, and scientific communities. Future citizen‐science projects will likely be influenced by sociocultural issues related to new technologies and will continue to face practical programmatic challenges. We foresee networked, open science and the use of online computer/video gaming as important tools to engage non‐traditional audiences, and offer recommendations to help prepare project managers for impending challenges. A more formalized citizen‐science enterprise, complete with networked organizations, associations, journals, and cyberinfrastructure, will advance scientific research, including ecology, and further public education.

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ObjectiveThe United States Public Health Service released clinical practice guidelines for daily oral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in May 2014. Local health departments (LHDs) are expected to play a critical role in PrEP implementation. We surveyed LHDs to assess awareness of and interest in supporting PrEP implementation, what roles they were taking, or believed they should take, in supporting PrEP, and what resources would be required to do so.MethodsLHDs were surveyed in 2015 to assess their engagement in PrEP implementation (n = 500). The study employed a cross-sectional survey design with a randomly selected stratified sample.ResultsAmong responding LHDs (n = 284), 109 (29%, weighted proportion) reported engagement in PrEP implementation. LHDs serving large jurisdictions (population 500,000+) and located in the West were more likely to be engaged in PrEP implementation. Making referrals for PrEP (74%) and conducting education and outreach to community members (51%) were the activities most frequently reported by LHDs engaged in PrEP implementation; 45% anticipated expanding their level of engagement. Among LHDs not engaged in PrEP implementation, 13% expected to become engaged over the next four years, 46% were undecided, and 41% reported it was unlikely. Information about PrEP for health care providers and information about PrEP for health department staff were the most frequently reported resource needs for LHDs engaged and not engaged in PrEP implementation, respectively.ConclusionsPrEP implementation by LHDs was limited in 2015, three years after Food and Drug Administration approval and one year after the U.S. Public Health Service issued clinical practice guidelines. PrEP is a recently available intervention that is requiring LHDs to adjust existing HIV prevention efforts and service delivery models. Additional resources and implementation research is needed to effectively support PrEP scale-up by LHDs. Efforts must also be undertaken to increase PrEP awareness, knowledge, and implementation capacity among LHDs.