I am a structural biologist, dedicated to promoting a molecular view of biology. I enjoy visualizing biomolecular structures, learning about their interactions and understanding their functions in atomic detail. I am also interested in pedagogy, visual thinking, spatial reasoning, and topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

I have been an Assistant Professor in Environmental Science at Mount St. Mary's University since the fall of 2021. Previously, I was a CAS Diversity Post Doctoral Fellow in the Integrative Biology Department of Oklahoma State University from 2018-2021. I worked within small OK reservoirs, collecting water quality data and measuring the phyto and zooplankton communities in order to better quantify seasonal turnover in old and young reservoirs. I received a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology under the direction of Dr. Lawrence J. Weider at the University of Oklahoma. My working thesis involved using theory and experimentation to better understand how population structure influences community properties and stability. I am using Daphnia as a model organism, linking their life-history traits to communities through size-distributions.

I joined QUBES in 2019 because I am passionate about integrating experimental design and analysis (and the coding skills that go with it) into course curricula and undergraduate research experiences. I've grown very fond of using Swirl with R as a self-paced tool to ease coding anxiety and to scaffold analyses in course materials.

In a resting egg (aka aquatic nutshell), I get excited over equations and graphs, while trying to keep myself grounded in real systems.

I'm a zoologist and paleoecologist currently an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin - River Falls with a joint appointment in the Department of Biology and the Department of Plant and Earth Science. My education background includes a Ph.D. in earth sciences from the University of Minnesota and an M.S. degree in earth sciences and B.S. degree in biology, both from Syracuse University. I teach an array of courses from introductory biology and geology to upper level courses such as zoology, mammalogy, and paleoecology. My students and I conduct research that focuses on illuminating the processes and interactions that shape patterns of biodiversity across varying scales of space and time. We investigate questions ecology, paleoecology, and paleoenvironmental questions using biogeochemical data, geospatial data, and the fossil record. Recent work used stable isotopes to investigate food resource partition by small mammals in response to environmental change today and over the last 4 million years in the Great Plains. Work beyond River Falls extends to participating in the Project EDDIE community as a workshop convener and a mentor for the Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN) that is a collaboration between Project EDDIE and QUBES. Outside of the classroom, Andrew enjoys playing basketball, hockey, hiking, landscaping, and exploring the world with his family.

Before arriving at UW-River Falls, I held Visiting Assistant Professor appointments at Macalester College, the University of Minnesota, and Gustavus Adolphus College. He taught a variety of courses spanning the disciplines of biology (biodiversity, interpreting landscapes) and earth sciences (paleobiology, sedimentology and stratigraphy). Most recently, he worked at the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College where his work focused on strengthening higher education through collaborative partnerships such as mentoring faculty developing teaching activities that have students use publicly available datasets to answer environmental questions. Andrew’s

Pat is currently Faculty Development Ambassador for BioQUEST and Emeritus Faculty from Emory University! Pat Marsteller directed the Emory College Center for Science Education and was a faculty member in the department of Biology at Emory. She studied evolution of animal behavior for her MS degree at University of South Carolina and evolution and quantitative genetics for her PhD at the University of Florida.  She worked with alligators for her MS thesis, investigating whether they could use the sun, the moon and the stars to navigate. Her dissertation research focused on a quantitative genetic analysis, using with fruit flies as a model system, to investigate genetic and environmental influence on life history patterns and traits such as longevity and quantity and timing of reproduction. She has taught courses evolution, Darwin and the idea of evolution and many other courses over her 30 years of college teaching.  She also works with college and pre-college faculty on developing curriculum materials and on using active learning strategies in the teaching of science and mathematics. She is the PI of the ScienceCasenetwork and NeuroCaseNet and a helper on HITS and Molecular CaseNet.

 Pat’s grand project is to prepare Faculty of the Future to teach well, to be creative, to be excellent mentors. She believes that we all have a responsibility to educate the public about science. Her other grand project relates to increasing diversity in science...She is in charge of special programs to increase success for underrepresented groups, women and first genration students at undergraduate, graduate, postdoc and faculty levels. support for these initiatives comes from NSF, HHMI, and NIH.  She is co-PI of the Emory Initiative for Maximizing Student Development project, among many projects that support student research.

Draft Undergraduate STEM Education 2040: An Optimists Perspective

The intersecting crises of 2020 (covid, antiracist protests and climate change) finally led faculty groups and funders to a social justice agenda for STEM education. Thousands of faculty read Ibram Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist and began to realize that open education resources (OER) and open pedagogy (OP) were needed to address the racial and ethnic disparities in health, impacts of climate change, and institutional practices.  A revolution began!

Graduate and postdoctoral programs added Social Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to professional development programs.  NSF reinstated the GK12 program and created a new Graduate-Undergraduate curriculum development program.  Institutions moved from general statements about social justice and serving all students to investing in reward systems and data tools to assess progress toward a just system that serves society. All types of institutions, community colleges, liberal arts institutions and research focused institution have over these years established networks and partnerships and formal transfer agreements. Faculty tenure and promotion guidelines were revised to include public scholarship and reflection on open pedagogies and professional development in applying social justice principles.  Discipline based education faculty were hired (on tenure track) in nearly every department. Since that watershed year our faculties have become more diverse and our curricula have changed.

The movement to integrate research into STEM courses developed into a movement to include students as co-creators of curricular materials.  Faculty worked together across departmental boundaries to assess content, curricular frameworks, and applications of each course and program to society.  Science literacy, data literacy, and application to social issues took priority.

Revised materials called for all people to be represented in texts and OER materials. and current research.

As a result, now in 2040 students not only feel welcomed as learners but enabled to be content creators and researchers from the first course. From the first course, students now learn to critique and evaluate knowledge claims. Our STEM courses are better coordinated and they incorporate visualization, research design and models, but they also examine the ethics of scientific practices and the social justice implications of historical and future science and application. Our faculties are more diverse and representative and thus constantly bring new perspectives to our teaching and research missions.

Our classrooms are now more open spaces that support the evidence based active learning practices and enable collaborative teams to create new knowledge. Our institutions intersect closely with local communities and our students investigate and solve problem with local community groups. 

From the very first course, we teach students to think like scientists, to evaluate and weigh evidence, to communicate clearly and to place scientific data in context.  Instead of focusing on science as a body of knowledge, we allow students to inquire, investigate and communicate. Inquiry-based approaches such as problem-based learning (PBL) and investigative case-based learning (ICBL) have documented success in enhancing conceptual understanding and increasing skills in problem solving, critical thinking, communication and self-assessment. By using complex, authentic problems to trigger investigation in lab and library, our students develop critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborative skills. These methods allow students to experience science integrated with other disciplines such as mathematics (graphs, statistics), history (social, economic and political context of the issue), and language arts (conveying research results) and enhance their capacity for creative and responsible real-world problem solving. Inquiry science courses integrate ethical dimensions of science. Debates on cloning, DNA testing, limits of prediction, and potential perils as well as benefits of science deepen understanding for all students.  Combining such approaches with practice in communicating science to different audiences creates engaged scholars and a scientifically literate public.

We have made great strides in moving from incremental interventions to systemic, structural and lasting change. Our majors now provide a more diverse STEM workforce and generate new ideas that are improving health, quality f life and discovery for all peoples and parts of the globe.  Our non-majors leave still loving and exploring science and they learn to critique and evaluate knowledge claims about health, vaccines and evolution.  Our STEM courses are better coordinated and they incorporate visualization, research design and models, but they also examine the ethics of scientific practices and the social justice implications of past

We have not yet solved all the inequities in K-12 or undergraduate education or in health disparities in local communities, but we have come a long way.  The experiments in education are now bolder, the future looks more just, more equitable and more creative.

OK...How's that???

Prior to arriving at Emory in 1990, Pat taught at large state universities and tiny liberal arts colleges.  This experience gave her the opportunity to teach nearly every course in Biology.  She loves teaching because transmitting the joys (and trials) of the process of science to students gives them the tools for lifelong learning and discovery.  Science is not merely a body of accumulated facts and theories, but an exhilarating process of discovery.  Good teachers are constant learners, inventing, creating and discovering new ways to facilitate learning.  As her friend John Jungck says, “teachers must move from the position of sage on the stage to guide on the side.”  Learning is an active process- students are not vessels into which we pour our accumulated wisdom; they are participants is generating, constructing and linking knowledge by placing new content in the context of what they know and by developing critical analysis skills so that they can generate reasonable hypotheses, test them, analyze carefully and draw reasonable conclusions.  Good teachers and good students should “Question Authority” as the bumper sticker on her door suggests.  Don’t just believe!  Delve into it, connect, apply, and make it your own!

Pat is a member of the Biology faculty and the NBB faculty and directs the Hughes Undergraduate Science Initiative and our Emory College Center for Science Education. She is  the oldest of 11 kids.  She is married to Fred Marsteller, who is a consultant in Biostatistics and Research Design.  Her son Sean was the founding Director of LearnLink.  He and his wife now live in Canada.

Theron L. Peterson and Dorothy R. Peterson Professor of Biology

As a member of the NIBLSE leadership team, Dr. Morgan is helping to establish a network of educators seeking to integrate bioinformatics into life science education. Using genomic and bioinformatics approaches, Dr. Morgan and his research students investigate how plant pathogens infect host plants at the molecular level.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7995-8067

A nationally recognized consultant, scientist, science educator, and higher education leader, Dr. Oates joined WPI from the National Science Foundation, where she had been serving as deputy director of the Division of Undergraduate Education. At the NSF, Karen managed a budget of over $380 million and a staff of more than 35 charged with supporting innovative programs to strengthen undergraduate and graduate education and helped revitalize American entrepreneurship and competitiveness.

Karen brings a variety of perspectives on faculty development, career and executive counseling, leading change and setting a collaborative culture as well as service learning and business-higher education partnerships.

Among the honors she has received are the Bruce Albert’s Award, presented by the American Society to Cell Biology for excellence in science education reform, and the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest civilian honor presented by the City of Harrisburg Pennsylvania. In 2012, she was inducted as a fellow into the prestigious American Association for the Advancement as  Science Education fellow, and in 2016 a Sigma Xi distinguished lecturer. She  was the chief architect of the WPI,  National Academy of Engineers – Global Grand Challenge Scholar program.

After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree from RIT, and her  Ph.D. at George Washington University Medical Center in Biochemistry, she worked as a visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute Oncology and Hematology Division. She began her academic career at George Mason University, where, as associate dean for the newly established College of Integrated and Interdisciplinary Studies, she helped create George Mason’s New American College environment. She later served as inaugural provost for the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, and  established the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement and helped secure NSF funds SENCER which works to improve undergraduate STEM/STEAM education by connecting learning to critical civic questions.  In 2018 Karen and Amy Shachter founded S4HE,  (Success 4 Higher Education, www.S4HE.com), working to support faculty and institutional academic programs and strategic initiatives across the united states and abroad. Karen is the Co-Pi on the NSF RAPID grant related to COVID -19 Vaccination Science which aims to develop educational  resources.

I’m a biochemist by training, but over the last 10 years have gotten more interested in bioinformatics. My research presently focuses on microbes. Wet lab work involves the processes of membrane traffic and autophagy in fungi, while bioinformatics work involves analysis of horizontal gene transfer between bacteria and bacteriophages.  This last forms our new community science project in our community of practice, Genome Solver.  Take a look at our website: 

https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/genomesolver

Very Irish, Microbe lover, Researcher, Educator

More about me:

Davida Smyth is an Associate Professor of Microbiology at Texas A&M University in San Antonio. There she conducts research with her undergraduate team in the area of comparative microbial genomics and evolution, studying Staphylococcus aureus from animals and from humans, and is researching the role of the built environment, wastewater, and anthropogenic activity in driving antibiotic resistance, a major global health threat. She also engages in pedagogical research on improving civic and scientific literacy in biology and integrating authentic research into the curriculum to improve student engagement and success in science. She is a Senior SENCER Leadership Fellow and PULSE Fellow and Ambassador. She is Deputy Director of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement.