2016 GER Officer Elections

It is time to vote for officers of the Geoscience Education Research Division of NAGT. The ballot includes President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. Voting begins on May 24 and ends on July 1, 2016.

Officer Candidate Biographies

President

Dr. Todd Ellis is an Assistant Professor in the Mallinson Institute for Science Education and the Department of Geography at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI. His dissertation research was focused on energy and climate change in the atmosphere, but he now focuses on researching ways to improve weather and climate education in K-12 schools, and best practices in formal and informal education and outreach. Previously, he was an Associate Professor at SUNY Oneonta in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and served as the campus governance leader in 2014-2015. His teaching experience includes introductory courses in meteorology and oceanography, physical meteorology courses, research methods courses, computer data analysis courses, and interdisciplinary courses in climate change.

Education: B.S. Physics, Pennsylvania State University; B.S. Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University; M.S. Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University; Ph.D. Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. Professional Experience: He is the Education and Public Outreach lead for the NASA CloudSat mission, helping a team of specialists maintain high quality formal and informal education about clouds in general and the CloudSat mission in particular. He is the Principal Investigator for the Teaching Inquiry using NASA Earth-system Science (TINES) program funded by NASA to develop ways to support the use of real data in the K-12 classroom, and has been PI or Co-I on three other NSF Grants and multiple other externally funded programs. He has presented over 50 teaching and learning workshops and presentations around the world on clouds and scientific inquiry, and continues efforts to establish professional learning communities for teacher professional development in science. He is a member of AGU, AMS, NSTA, NARST, ASCD, and NAGT.

Vice President

Karen McNeal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University. Her research is best characterized by the geoscience education and geocognition research fields where the study of peoples' understanding, engagement, and perceptions of complex earth systems is emphasized. She ties together the affective and cognitive domains of learning through both qualitative and quantitative methods in the context of climate change and Earth System Science phenomena. Where she specifically, focuses on student's conceptual model development of complex environmental systems; assessingthe affective (value and belief) influences on people's climate knowledge and perceptions; measuring participant engagement and attention through psychomotor (e.g., eye-tracking and skin conductance) responses to climate information and testing differences between expert and novice learners; and the development and testing of programs, classroom activities and pedagogies that enhance scientific literacy, recruitment of students to the geosciences,and the communication of the geosciences.

Karen hopes to continue to foster the community the Geo Ed Research Division has established both within the disciplinary boundaries and beyond.

Education: B.S. Marine Science, Eckerd College; M.S. Oceanography, Texas A&M University; Ph.D. Geology, Texas A&M University. Teaching Experience: Geology I: Processes and Products, Ocean Science, Earth System Science, Climate Change Communication, Biogeochemical Cycles, Environmental Geology, Principles of Pedagogical Design in STEM, Geoscience Education: Theory, Research and Practice Professional Experience: Assistant and Associate Professor at Mississippi State University (6 years); Associate Professor at North Carolina State University (3 years); Co-PI, PI or external evaluator on over 28 external grants with funding from the NSF, NOAA, EPA, and NASA totaling over $14M; ~40 peer-reviewed publications; Editor for Research of JGE (2010-2014) and Associate Editor of JGE (2014-present); Panel Reviewer for NOAA, NSF; Member, NAGT, GSA, AGU.

Treasurer

Dr. Anne Gold is Associate Scientist and geoeducation specialist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)'s Education and Outreach group. She has conducted climate science research for 6 years and taught many college-level classes, including field-camps and advised M.S. students. She is serving as a lead on a summer research project for community college students in Colorado, on curriculum development projects and on a research project about the importance of spatial thinking in Geoscience education. She is the PI of an ITEST project in which students develop short videos about how climate change affects their communities and lives. She previously developed the CLEAN peer-review process for educational resources. She conducts program evaluation and educational research around climate topics. Her projects translate research into educational resources.

Secretary

Katherine Ryker is an Assistant Professor in Earth Science Education in the Department of Geography and Geology at Eastern Michigan University. She received her Ph.D. training as a member of the Geoscience Learning Process Research (GLPR) team led by David McConnell at North Carolina State University. Katherine's research interests revolve around inquiry and student learning in introductory geoscience lectures and labs, the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices, and potential implications for professional development.

Katherine has seven years of teaching experience at the high school and college levels, with teaching awards from NC State and NAGT. She enjoys putting her geoscience education research into practice through professional development opportunities. These have included a SERC Career Development Teaching webinar, the NC State Graduate Student Summer Teaching Institute, university-wide workshops on improving practices in STEM labs, and departmental seminars on Moodle and time management. At EMU, she focuses on pre-service teacher training in the earth sciences. In more informal settings, Katherine has designed and led a week-long summer camp geared toward increasing diversity in the geosciences and works regularly with local K-12 students and teachers to engage the community at large.

Education: B.S. Earth and Ocean Sciences, Duke University; M.S. (Sedimentology) and Ph.D. (Geoscience Education) in Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University. College teaching experience: Earth Science for Elementary Educators; Secondary Methods for Earth Science Education (Eastern Michigan University); Physical Geology lecture and lab; Geology of NC for Teachers (North Carolina State University). High school teaching experience: Biology, AP Biology, Earth Science, Astronomy, Intro to High School Math, and Algebra I for Durham Public Schools; Durham, NC. Member: GSA, IAGD (International Association for Geoscience Diversity), AEG, NAGT, NSTA, ASTE (Association for Science Teacher Education).