I am an ecologist at the University of Montana Western. My research focuses on engaging undergraduates to investigate how ecosystems and species respond to natural and anthropogenic disturbances, particularly in aquatic systems. In collaboration with undergraduate students at my institution, we have studied riparian vegetation influences on stream temperatures, lake food web dynamics between native and non-native fish, sagebrush songbird energetics in relation to climate variability, stochastic models of disease ecology in bats, ecological interactions at beaver dams, and the influence of urban building and vegetation design on window collisions by songbirds. My current research interests include flood-irrigation influences on migratory water birds, Arctic grayling early life history constraints, Western pearlshell mussel conservation, and supporting continental-scale ecology projects involving students at primarily undergraduate institutions and citizen science. I have a bachelor’s of science degree in biology with an emphasis in marine and freshwater biology from the University of New Hampshire (1998) and a Ph.D. in organismal biology and ecology from the University of Montana (2008) studying floodplain biocomplexity.

Dr. Bangera is the founding Dean of the RISE Learning Institute, developing it from concept to successful implementation to bring high impact practices such as Research, Project, and Service based learning to students across all disciplines at Bellevue College. She has also served as the Interim Vice President of Instruction and Acting Co-President of Bellevue College. She leads a team of faculty and staff in designing and constructing a state-of-the-art makerspace and the predesign of the Transdisciplinary Innovations Center.

Obtaining more than $1M in grant funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Bangera was also helped obtain state funding for almost $1M in state-of-the-art lab equipment. She is one of 39 PULSE leadership fellows impacting science education at the national level. She is the director of the ComGen project that has created a community of practice for Classroom based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) with faculty from 27 higher education institutions in Washington. She is currently working with other leaders in the state to develop a statewide undergraduate research consortium.

Dr. Bangera is also an inventor and technical consultant 46 issued patents and over 110 patent applications and a small business owner.

Previously Dr. Bangera was a Senior Scientist at Combimatrix Corporation and conducted Post-doctoral Research at Harvard Medical School, University of Washington Medical School, and University of Copenhagen. She received her doctorate in Microbiology at Washington State University, Master’s in Biology from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master’s in Microbiology from University of Mumbai. 

I'm an Assistant Professor of Biology at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT. I will be working with the HHMI Biointeractive Faculty Mentoring Network.  My research interests involve innate immune response inactivation by a novel viral protein. Much of my work involves computational methods, including sequence analysis and protein modelling. I received my PhD from University of Wisconsin, Madison and have been in my current position for 4 years.

I'm a biologist teaching at the University of Montana Western. My interests include avian behavioral ecology, population genetics, and community ecology. I am passionate about encouraging a curiosity and enthusiasm for the natural world. I find working with students incredibly rewarding and am always looking for ways I can better my teaching and find more effective and creative ways to assist learning. I graduated with my Bachelors from Montana State University and my Master's on avian foraging ecology from Northern Michigan University. 

Hello! I’m Professor Doug Chalker. I joined the faculty of the Wash U Biology department in 2001. The courses that I teach focus on genetics, genomics, and molecular cell biology. These include an advanced laboratory course in which students perform original research.

I am a married, cisgender male (pronouns: he/him/his; preferred name: Doug) who shares a house in University City with Debbie and two cats, Dextrose and Lola. I grew up in Southern California and completed my college education in the public University of California system (B.S. Biology – UC Riverside; PhD, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics – UC Irvine).

After college, I moved to Seattle, WA to begin my post-doctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. (This is also where I met Debbie, who also has a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology). I am a first generation college graduate and had no idea when I started in college that I would become a professor.  I am fortunate to get to continue to learn about biology with my students, both in the classroom and the research lab.

In my research lab, we use molecular genetics and cell biology to uncover, and better understand, molecular mechanisms that operate within cells. Most of this research investigates the biology of a ciliated protozoan called Tetrahymena thermophila. Specifically, this research aims to understand the functional organization of eukaryotic genomes (how do cells pack one meter’s worth of DNA into each nucleus and still manage to read the information encoded). More recently, projects in the lab also aim to discover how cells develop elaborate structures that determine cellular shape and function.

More about my laboratory research.

The research of my laboratory aims to discover and characterize fundamental mechanisms that eukaryotes use to organize and maintain their genomes. These investigations focus on the genome-wide, programmed DNA rearrangements of the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila, which remodel the developing somatic genome during development. Our work has helped establish that these DNA rearrangements are guided by small RNA-directed heterochromatin formation, which marks a third of the 150 Mbp germline-derived genome for elimination from the differentiating somatic chromosomes. We have identified key proteins that package the DNA to be eliminated into heterochromatin-like bodies and precisely define the boundaries of the excised heterochromatin. In addition, our research has revealed that DNA sequences present in the parental somatic genome, which are not directly inherited by progeny cells, can epigenetically regulate these DNA rearrangements. Our findings provide evidence that these genome-altering events evolved by modifying the roles of existing cellular machineries. Some novel proteins that we have characterized possess structures suggesting a transposon origin, which indicates that the very sequences that these DNA rearrangements target for elimination have, through evolution, contributed to the mechanism of their elimination. My lab continues to pursues two major research directions. One is to study the RNAi-related mechanism that Tetrahymena cells use to identify the regions of the genome that need to be silenced, directing specific heterochromatin modifications to those sequences during somatic genome differentiation. The other is to characterize the molecular machinery used to package loci into heterochromatin and subsequently eliminate them from the somatic genome. This proposal is based on our recent studies of Lia3, the first protein discovered that regulates the accuracy of DNA elimination. Lia3 binds to a guanine(G)-rich sequence that defines the boundaries of several loci, but only when that sequence forms a G quadruplex structure. We plan to elucidate how distal G-rich sequences can be brought together to form a non-canonical DNA structure that defines heterochromatin domains during development. While pursuing my research goals, I am committed to training the next generation of scientists at all levels. As a faculty member at Washington University, I have graduated six students from three different programs in the Division of Biology and Biological Sciences, who each earned their PhD’s through research in my laboratory. I currently serve on the steering committees for two graduate programs in: 1) Molecular Genetics and Genomics; and 2) Developmental, Regenerative & Stem Cell Biology and have served as a member of over 40 dissertation advisory committees. As a researcher/educator, I have developed curriculum that engages undergraduates in authentic research in the laboratory classroom. Student generated results have been published in peer-reviewed articles with enrolled students as authors. I use my time and energy to enhance a larger research community. I serve as a reviewer and/or editor for research journals and as a grant proposal panelist. In addition, I serve as a member of the Tetrahymena Research Advisor Board; I was elected to the inaugural term as President, serving from 2011-2013. The mission of the Board is to increase the impact a research performed using this important model organism. My expertise as a researcher and experience as an educator provide me with important insights that guide my mentorship of students at all levels as they prepare for future careers in science.

Contact infomation: nc526 "at" cornell "dot" edu

Dr. Nicole Chodkowski has been a QUBES postdoc since January 2018. Her primary mentor is Jeremy Wojdak at Radford University. Nicole’s background is in aquatic ecology. She received her Ph.D. from Ball State University for her work on host-parasite interactions and parasite effects on host nutrient recycling and metabolism in ecosystems. At QUBES, Nicole’s work is focused on planning and facilitating the faculty mentoring networks centered around adapting and sharing open educational resources for teaching quantitative skills.

https://www.bio.udel.edu/people/crcooper?uid=crcooper&Name=Carlton%20R.%20Cooper,%20Ph.D.

I get excited about helping students from all backgrounds discover their inner scientist by exploring real problems with real data. As a long term team member and current Director of the Animal Diversity Web, I have been interested in exploring ways to structure data for querying and engage students in discovering patterns and diversity in the natural history of animals. I currently teach introductory biology courses at Colorado State University and am constantly on the hunt for new ways to help students understand how much science and biodiversity is a part of their every day lives. My background in bat genetics and systematics makes me especially enthusiastic about any bat-related news and I still occasionally get into the field to work with these amazing creatures!

I am the Director of Outreach and Strategic Engagement with the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium. I have over 25 years of experience teaching introductory biology, ecology, and evolution courses. I'm also on the leadership team of the QUBES project and I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to bring new teaching and learning resources into classrooms.

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 and spatial reasoning.

I am a mathematical biologist am interested in spatial ecology. I have done research bu writing mathematical models of ant territoriality investigating information use and decision making by ant colonies in a territorial conflict. I am also interested in investigating ant foraging behavior and nest making and architecture.

I have bachelors degrees in Mathematics and Physics from Utah State University and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Utah. I am interested in bringing in authentic practices into my mathematics classes at the university. I teach Calculus I, Calculus II and Probability.

email: joseph "dot" eason "at" umwestern "dot" edu

I teach the freshman biology sequence and am the director of our undergraduate research program at Greenville Technical College. I also serve as a Faculty Fellow and provide assistance with curriculum development and assessment. I received my Ph.D. in Plant and Environmental Sciences from Clemson University and have a Masters degree in Zoology, although my focus was in limnology. Crazy, huh?

With more than 20 years experience in undergraduate science education, Adam Fagen served as Deputy Director for BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium and a member of the leadership team for QUBES from November 2018 until October 2019 and continues to serve on the staff for BioQUEST. He is also Director of Communications and Advocacy for the Association of Science and Technology Centers, a nonprofit membership organization of nearly 500 science and technology centers and museums around the world.

Adam served as Executive Director of the Genetics Society of America, a scientific professional society with more than 5,700 members around the world, providing strategic leadership for all Society activities. He was previously Director of Public Affairs for the American Society of Plant Biologists, where he led the Society’s education, communications, and policy portfolios.

Before that, Adam was Senior Program Officer with the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where he directed studies on science education and training, biosecurity, interdisciplinary research, stem cell research, and more. He served as the Academies' lead for the Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education in Biology.

He earned his PhD in molecular biology and education from Harvard University with research focused on mechanisms for enhancing student learning and conceptual understanding in introductory biology and physics. Fagen also received an AM in molecular and cellular biology from Harvard and a BA from Swarthmore College with a double-major in biology and mathematics.

Contact: refurrow AT ucdavis DOT edu

I have recently started as an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at the University of California, Davis. I teach a large introductory course in ecology and evolution, and I'm currently developing a new introductory scientific literacy course, a behavioral ecology course, and small introductory, course-based research experiences focused on mathematical modeling and statistics. My research is oriented towards building biology students' self-efficacy in quantitative skills and understanding student perceptions of inclusive teaching. I'm also interested in how students develop field biology skills and increase their attentiveness to the natural world. I typically attend the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) annual meeting. In the past I have attended Evolution, but in my new position I'm eager to attend the Wildlife Society conference and ESA, with a focus on projects related to education. 

For the BIOME Institute, I'm eager to work on projects related to introductory experiential learning, particularly if it's related to building students' science process skills (like writing, communication, and reading scientific papers) and quantitative skills (like programming, statistical thinking, and mathematical modeling). I have some experience teaching introductory course-based research experiences focused on modeling microbial growth and on comparative genomics.  But I'm newer to teaching some of the science process skills, and I'd love to learn from peers who work on this.

PhD Student in Botany at the University of Florida. 

Twitter: @ShellyGaynor

I teach at Augustana College, which is a liberal arts college in Illinois.  I teach ecology, evolution, aquatic biology, and capstone experiences for biology and environmental studies students.  My research focuses on stream structure and ecosystem function in urban and agricultural areas. 

I am a  Professor in the Department of Biology, and the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology.  I am also Associate Director for Education at the Kessler Atmospheric and Ecological Field Station.  I have taught intro biology more times than I can remember (I think I am at 70+ times), but I still love it.  Although there will be challenges, I am looking forward to teaching an online lecture to a very large class this fall.

I am the Director of Authentic Science Research at Toms River HS North & Toms River HS South. I have been teaching for 26 years at HS South. I have taught Biology, Earth Science, and Authentic Science Research (since 2005). I now teach at 2 of the 3 public high schools in Toms River and just teach research. I am always seeking new things to learn to bring opportunities to my students. I partner with a school in Israel and my friend Dr. Pirchi Waxsman to run a Global STEM Wolbachia Project. Our students work virtually in groups of 4-5 and compare data they collect from mosquitoes on the prevalence of Wolbachia in the samples. Students creat a group PPT, & Poster to present to an international panel of scientists. 

I am an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and teach in the Biotechnology Program (BIT, biotech.ncsu.edu) at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. My research interests include molecular microbiology, metagenomics, high-throughput discovery, epidemiology, history of disease, science education, and outreach activities. I am also interested in teaching with technology and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Hello!

I am a coral biologist and an aspiring future faculty. I am excited to participate in the Biome Institute and learn from everybody! My hope is to become a better educator. 

I'm a quantitative population & community ecologist who mostly works in marine and aquatic systems, and started at St. Mary's College of Maryland as an assistant professor in the fall of 2021. I'm currently a postdoc in the math department at Tulane working on a project examining spatial variation due to ecological interactions on coral reefs. Previously, I did postdocs with QUBES (based at Radford) and East Carolina University (looking at predator diversity in riverine rock pools).  I have a BA in Marine Biology/Applied Mathematics from New College of Florida, and a PhD in Ecology from UGA (although I started at UF).  

Andrew Hasley, who often goes by, Drew, is currently a Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar in the Biotechnology Program at North Carolina State University. He teaches courses in fundamental biotechnology skills, professional development, biotechnology ethics, and environmental DNA analysis and applications to ecology and environmental science. He plans to research implementation of UDL strategies in lab- and field-based courses.

Most recently, Dr. Hasley co-managed BioQUEST's Universal Design for Learning initiative. This initiative focuses on providing professional development for undergraduate biology faculty at 2- and 4-year institutions to help them adopt and apply a UDL approach to their teaching.

Dr. Hasley earned a Ph.D. in genetics from University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2016. His graduate work ranged from the use of whole genome expression to study zygotic gene activation in zebrafish, to the evolution of early embryonic cleavage patterns in vertebrates, to the relevance of genetics and biotechnology to the concept of Novel Ecosystems and biodiversity conservation. He then completed a postdoc with Dr. Nicole Perna at UW-Madison researching how metabolic genes and networks evolve in enterobacteria using bioinformatics and phylogenetics.

In addition to his genetics research, Dr. Hasley has devoted substantial effort to outreach and research on strategies for making biology, especially quantitative biology, education more accessible for students with disabilities. This focus has broadened to an interest in Universal Design for Learning, a framework for creating instructional environments that are usable by, accessible to, and inclusive of, as many students as possible. Work in this area has included curriculum development and numerous workshops and presentations, nearly always in collaboration with talented colleagues. Dr. Hasley can provide a, sadly, rare perspective to discussions of UDL in biology education as he is himself a blind biologist who has been blind since birth. He is currently preparing apublication with colleagues to share a UDL-aligned adaptation of an activity to teach phylogenetic tree interpretation and reading to undergraduate students. The authors are excited to share the intended and unintended benefits this activity has had for students in the classroom.

He currently lives in Bemidji, Minnesota with his wife, Dr. Megan Fitzpatrick, who is a Research Scientist with the Minnesota department of Natural Resources. He is interested in career opportunities that will allow him to combine is passions for scientific research and teaching.

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto, ON, Canada. My interests are in CURE development, testing, and metacognition.

I am the Executive Director of TIDES at UT Austin.  I earned my Bachelors at the University of California San Diego, in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. A high point of my undergraduate career was studying abroad at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia for a year. I earned my PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Arizona, where I worked on RNA metabolism. After a short stint in industry at a start up biotech company, I moved into education. I have been fortunate to have a variety of experiences including teaching high school, as well as at a small college, an R1 and a community college. I ran a McNair Program at Concord College in West Virginia, and worked for BCSC before taking a position at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). From NESCent, I moved to a position in future faculty development at the University of Wisconsin.  In  2015I became the Executive Director of BioQUEST where I led the transition to a non-profit organization and played a key role in the development of QUBES.  

My goal in science education is promoting success for all students and I use the Universal Design for Learning framework to support this outcome.  I am particularly interested in teaching evolution, nature of science and quantitative reasoning skills.  Projects I have been involved in to achieve these goals include Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges (https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/qbcc), which brings together a community of mathematics and biology faculty at two year institutions to develop Open Education Resources for teaching quantitative skills in a biology context, the BioQUEST UDL Initiative, which  is focusing on bringing Universal Design for Learning practices to higher education, and EVOKE, an EU coalition focused on improving evolution education for everyone. 

Megan A. Jones Patterson (Megan A. Jones) has always seen a connection between nature, science, and education. She is passionate about sparking curiosity and fostering learning in students of all ages.

Her work with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) focused on undergraduates, graduate students, and early career professionals. Ecological sciences are entering the age of big data and Megan worked with colleagues and community members to provide the NEON data user community with resources to ensure they have the stills to work with large ecological data sets like those offered by NEON.

Megan earned a BSc in Wildlife Biology at Humboldt State University prior to going to Florida State University where she earned a MS in College Science Teaching and a PhD in Biological Science with a focus on evolutionary behavioral ecology. Her dissertation research focused on fitness consequences of cooperative courtship displays in the neotropical avian family Pipridae (manakins). Megan has a strong background in ecological fieldwork, particularly with birds, in both temperate and tropical ecosystems ranging from Alaskan tundra to the Australian bush to Ecuadorian cloud forest. For her, science, education, and natural history are not only a career but also a passion.

Research @ a CC on a budget

Scaffolding Research Skills

Stacey has taught at Lane Community College full time since 1996. She primarily teaches the life science majors with an emphasis on zoology the third quarter. She co-taught Honors classes. Many biology classes at Lane incorporate undergraduate research, and her zoology students have been doing student-designed projects since 2013. Stacey was president of NABT (National Association of Biology Teachers) in 2014 and currently serves on NABT's the Intro Bio Taskforce. Stacey is co-chair of the Gordon Research Conference - Undergraduate Biology Education scheduled for June 2021. She started attending BioQUEST Summer Workshops in 1999 and currently volunteers as the Two Year Outreach director.

Twitter: @StaceyKiser

Instagram: slkiser2002

I am a mathematician in the Department of Biology at the College of William and Mary.  One of my roles in the department is to strengthen the quantitative skills of biology majors.  I am also the site manager for QUBES, so if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message!

I am a Professor of Biology at Raritan Valley Community College where I teach General Biology (for majors), Genetics and Cellular & Molecular Biology. 

Pat Marsteller directed the Emory College Center for Science Education and is 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.

Theodore Muth is an associate professor in the Biology Department at CUNY Brooklyn College. Muth received his B.S. in Biology from Haverford College in 1993, and his Ph.D. in cell biology from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1998, where he studied protein targeting in epithelial and neuronal cells in the lab of Dr. Michael Caplan. Muth went on to receive postdoctoral training at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem studying bacterial multidrug resistance transporters, and a second postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, studying DNA transfer by the plant pathogen, A. tumefaciens. As an Associate Professor at Brooklyn College I have focussed on the study of urban microbial communities, and I have lead a national initiative to provide research experiences for undergraduate students in exploring complex microbiomes using metagenomic strategies and “big data” analysis tools. My lab’s research is at the leading edge of studies on urban microbial communities, and we were recently a part of the first team to publish on the diversity of subway microbiomes (Afshinnekoo et al., 2015), and the first lab to report on the diversity of soil bacterial communities in spatially and compositionally distinct soil horizons (Joyner et al., 2019, Huot et al., 2017). Complementing these research efforts, I worked to adapt protocols and develop training resources that have allowed microbiome research to be carried out by undergraduate students in laboratory courses (Introductory Microbiology Lab). The work that I initiated in the teaching labs at Brooklyn College has been funded by the NSF and provided support to microbiome research projects at institutions across the nation involving over 5,000 undergraduates, and has lead to the formation of the Research Experiences in Microbiomes Network (REMNet), that I am currently the director of. 

Universal Design for Learning Consultant at BioQUEST.

I have worked on both the QUBES and BioQUEST projects out of Pittsburgh, PA since 2016. In these roles I work to support initiatives around Open Educational Resources and the design and implementation of professional development that focuses on Universal Design for Learning.

Email: hco1 "at" pitt "dot" edu

Name badge: Hayley Orndorf

Contact information: mphillips AT flmnh DOT ufl DOT edu Twitter: @StellarSquirrel

Molly is a biologist with a background in evolution, ecology, and natural history, which includes five years of experience working in natural history collections. As the Education and Outreach Coordinator, Molly is responsible for coordinating and implementing the E&O activities of iDigBio and communicating and facilitating coordination and networking among the TCNs in order to promote, encourage, develop, and implement relevant E&O and related Broader Impact activities.

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History. I am a vertebrate paleontologist currently describing a new population of 5-6 million year old elephant relatives called Gomphotheres. I will be reconstructing the paleoenvironment and population dynamics of this unique 4-tusked proboscidean. 

I am passionate about increasing representation in biology, specifically in natural history collections. I am interested in using innovative techniques to increase representation and provide mentorship to improve students' chances of completion of their degree and into their career of choice.

I'm mid-career faculty, teaching chemistry at a variety of levels including general, organic and biochemistry as well as doing research in metabolic profiling while trying to figure how to get back into biophysics (my first love, NMR-based structural biology, isn't a good fit for the resources available at Stockton).

I've joined BIOME as part of the Molecular CaseNet group, hoping to expand on the work that group has been doing implementing case studies to increase student understanding of structure-function relationships. The version of a biochemistry degree we offer is a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology degree, becoming more familiar with other tools in biology would be helpful for helping the students see the curriculum as an integrated set of ideas rather than a bunch of disparate courses.

Songs: 

Bob Dylan - You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

Simon and Garfunkel - Fakin' It

I am coming from Heidelberg University, a small liberal arts college in Tiffin (northwest), Ohio where I teach Intro Bio for majors and non-majors and Microbiology.  My research background is in molecular biology and genetics, studying regulation of gene expression in budding yeast.  My current areas of interest in curriculum development and science education research include developing case studies, the effective use of animations, and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).     

I am a teaching assistant professor at UNC-Chapel Hill with the following research focuses:

(1) Neuroscience Education: At UNC we are dedicated to discovering and implementing the best evidence-based teaching practices in our neuroscience and course based research classrooms.

(2) Neuroscience: A fundamental challenge of modern neuroscience is to map the connections and functions of all neurons in the brain. My research focuses on a tiny sliver of this complexity, a group of neurons that are defined by their synthesis of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE). Despite the small number of neurons in this group, release of NE from synaptic connections across the brain and body modulate a wide variety of behaviors and processes, including: attention, stress, learning, memory and the perception of pain. Projects in my lab use cutting edge genetic techniques (i.e. recombinase‐based intersectional strategies) to study the effects of manipulating NE neuron activity in vivo.

Deputy Director
@DebRookPaleo

Dr. Deborah Rook is an evolutionary biologist and paleontologist. She has a bachelor's degree in Biology and Evolutionary biology from Case Western Reserve University and a masters in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology from Ohio State University, having studied evolutionary and ecological dynamics of Cenozoic mammals. For her PhD, she moved into Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on dynamic interactions of the rock and fossil records. Biology education has always been a focus for her, having taught and studied pedagogical techniques throughout her graduate studies and beyond. She joined the QUBES team in September 2017 as the FMN Project Manager, where she is working with the Faculty Mentoring Networks to enhance student experiences with quantitative biology, and the Professional Development Manager as our opportunities expanded. Since September 2021, she moved to Deputy Director, where she continues to work in the professional development space but now also manages staff and assists the Executive Director with business aspects of the organization.

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

• Educational Psychology; Statistics; Mentoring in STEM
• Teaching experience: Statistics; Psychology courses - Atlanta area colleges
• Twitter: @dramysalter
• National conferences: APA; Regional Conference: SEPA; Local Conferences: GAS, GERA 
• For the BIOME Institute:
  • Expertise to offer: mentoring in STEM/ Expertise in search of: mentoring in research experiences
  • Activity or research experience you are interested in working on/developing: Statistics

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.

I work mostly in spatial data infrastructure for research computing in the life sciences as part of CyVerse.

I am the General Biology assistant professor at St. Lawrence University, a small private liberal arts college located in Canton, NY. Prior to my current position,  I worked extensively as a biomedical researcher on the molecular biology and genomics of the malaria parasite and currently interested in studying the microbiome of soil and plant roots with application to sustainable agriculture. In my previous classes, I have implemented CUREs such as Tiny Earth, PARE (Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment), and MGAN (Microbial Genome Annotation Network). I hope to develop a CURE for microbiome analysis using the minIon sequencer.

I am a CC-Bio INSITES community college biology scholar. This is a network to support inquiry into teaching and education scholarship (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward)  (http://bioquest.org/projects/) fellow and an active participant in Bio QUEST (http://bioquest.org/), CCURI (http://ccuri.org) annual workshops.

Promoting Student Success Using Supplemental InstructionNational Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD)-Innovation Abstracts, Volume XLI, No. 39 | October 17, 2019 

Few of my case studies are as follows:

a) Summer time - ice cream time: Lactase Persistence in Humans is being published at National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo (June 2016),

b)Bioengineering a Heart -- Bioengineering a Heart. HAPS Educator 21 (Suppl.2): 15-19. doi: doi: 10.21692/haps.2017.0341

https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.hapsweb.org/resource/resmgr/educator_archive/HAPSEducator2017SpecialEditi.pdf (November 2017).  

c) https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/1199/1 Vemu, S. (2019). Adapted Value of Mistakes. Biology Students Math Attitudes and Anxiety Program (BIOMAAP): a QUBES Faculty Mentoring Network, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/Q4DT8C

d) Histology Personal Trainer: Identifying Tissue Types Using Critical Thinking and Metacognition Prompts

J Microbiol Biol Educ2019 Aug 30;20(2):20.2.44.  doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v20i2.1791

e) Feel the Burn -- Biochemical Testing and the Integumentary System - https://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/collection/detail.html?case_id=1138&id=1138

Few of my workshop presentations are as follows:

a) Promoting success in First year students through multicultural engagement at Midwest First Year Conference http://www.mfyc.org/pdf/MFYC_EDUCATION_SESSIONS_SCHEDULE_2015.pdf

b) Metacognition workshop based on the poster presentation at NIU for Minorities Promise scholars. Promoting Success with Critical Thinking and Metacognition in the Science Classroom for First-Year Students Utilizing Supplemental Instruction https://nabt.org/files/galleries/NABT2017ProgramGuide_web-0002.pdf.  

c) OLI conference with Julia Spears and CTP fellows at NIU https://secure.onlinelearningconsortium.org/conference/2014/blended/best-practices-transforming-course-blended-community-improved-student-metacognition 

d) http://www.niu.edu/cseas/_pdf/bbflyer.pdf.pdf: Talk on Microbes, Borneo mud and Antibiotic Resistance for Center of Southeast Asia studies. 

e) Workshop on Leveraging various opportunities for innovation and network building in the scholarship of community college teaching at 2018 Bio-Link Summer Fellows Forum, University of Berkeley, Clark-Kerr Campus, CA. https://www.bio-link.org/home2/event/2018-bio-link-summer-fellows-forum

f) Assessing Global Awareness in Associate Level Microbiology: Adapting Case Studies and the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics To Examine the Global Challenges of Mosquito Borne Disease". (Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning in press

g) https://www.nsta.org/journal-college-science-teaching/journal-college-science-teaching-septemberoctober-2020/identifying TWO-YEAR COMMUNITY


Identifying Differences in Learning Strategies by Demographics and Course Grade in a Community College Context Journal of College Science Teaching—September/October 2020 (Volume 50, Issue 1)

I am also engaged in Faculty Mentoring Networks (FMN) 2016-2017 that includes face to face workshop experience at Annual Bio QUEST conference with a supportive long term community interaction on the QUBES site. https://qubeshub.org/dataviewer/view/publication: dsl/prj_db_223_8e0c85da2f67271a1f934686266a34efc4b9ee31/? V=4  

"Its only skin deep!" is a working group branching from the 2016 National Academies Special Topics Summer Institute on Quantitative Biology. This group is working specifically on the following levels of problem solving: a) Correlation of skin pigmentation with latitude and Vitamin D deficiencies. b) Physiology and biochemistry of melanin synthesis and trafficking c) Regulatory genes involved in process of melanin expression d) Vitamin D deficiency, skin pigmentation related to genotypes.

 I am interested in ethno pharmacology as it relates to my Ph.D. work from Chicago Medical School (role of antibiotics in the regulation of transcription in yeast/cancer cell prototype). While teaching a graduate course in Pharmacology (Biology department at NIU as an adjunct), we piloted Pharmacology- active learning exercises with Dr.Lisa Freeman (Pharmacologist when I met her in 2011). I have some interest in adding some chapters on ethno pharmacology to the book as well. https://titles.cognella.com/pharmacology-for-allied-personnel-978162661998

I have deep interest in the exchange of information and understandings about people's use of plants, fungi, animals, microorganisms and minerals and their biological and pharmacological effects based on the principles established through international conventions.

Many of our valuable drugs of today (e.g., atropine, ephedrine, tubocurarine, digoxin, reserpine) came into use through the study of indigenous remedies. During my postdoctoral research, we continued to use plant-derived drugs (e.g., morphine, taxol, physostigmine, quinidine, emetine, vancomycin) as prototypes to develop more effective and less toxic medicinals.

Bachelors Degree in Fundamental Biology (Spain)

PhD Plant Physiology (Spain)

Postdoctoral Research in Plant Biotechnology (in vitro culture and genetic engineering (France and Spain)

Professor of Biology and Genetics at Northampton Community College since 2003

Ward is an Education and Outreach Associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. She grew up in Columbus, Montana, before heading west to Whitman College to earn her Bachelor’s degree in Geology. She went on to complete her Master’s degree at Washington State University and Ph.D. at the University of Montana both in Geology. Ward accepted a two-year postdoctoral research position at Michigan State University where she worked on projects related to geocognition and geoscience education research before starting a faculty position at Rocky Mountain College. After 10+ years in the classroom at Rocky, Emily has joined CIRES where she brings expertise in curriculum development, discipline-based education research, and evaluation. She focuses her research and development work on the design and assessment of place-based geoscience curricula, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) and field experiences. She also has experience evaluating research experiences in formal and informal environments, broadening participation efforts, and professional conferences.

Jeremy is an aquatic community ecologist at Radford University in Virginia. He is currently investigating predator functional diversity and better models to understand how multiple predator species affect prey populations. He teaches a variety of courses including Ecology and Adaptation, Parasitology, Tropical Field Biology, and Scientific Illustration.  Jeremy is a PI for the QUBES project, as well as the AIMS project that uses image analysis to engage students in mathematics and statistics, and the BIOMAAP project that hopes to reduce student's math anxiety through evidence-based interventions.  He is also a PI on an HHMI-funded Inclusive Excellence project (REALISE) that is reforming instruction and curriculum in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics at Radford University, with the aim of improving outcomes for all students.