It is time to vote for National Officers of NAGT. The ballot includes Vice President and two Councilors-at-Large. Voting begins on May 24 and ends on July 1, 2016.
Officer Candidate Biographies
Vice President
David McConnell is a professor of geology at North Carolina State University. David's teaching and research focus on large introductory geoscience classes and how to train people to teach them effectively. His research group has created a variety of teaching resources for introductory courses that have been shared with the geoscience community, including a collection of ConcepTests, a series of inquiry-based physical geology labs, and many short geoscience videos available on his team's YouTube channel. David's research has been characterized by collaborations with teams of colleagues in numerous NSF-funded projects such as GARNET, On the Cutting Edge and InTeGrate. David has been recognized for his teaching with awards at NC State, the University of Akron and Kansas State University and he was featured as a case study in the book,
Reaching Students: What Research says about Effective Instruction in Undergraduate Science and Engineering published by the National Academies Press. David's research has produced dozens of published articles and professional presentations for him and his students and he has coauthored an earth science textbook (The Good Earth) with David Steer.
Education
BSc (Hons), Geology, 1981, Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland; MS, Geology, 1983, Oklahoma State University; PhD Geology, 1987, Texas A&M University; Visiting Assistant Professor, Kansas State University, 1987-1989; Assistant, Associate, Full Professor, University of Akron, 1989-2008; Professor, Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, 2008-present.
Councilor-at-Large
John Taber is the Education and Public Outreach Director at Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). The EPO Program is one of the core programs of IRIS, a university consortium that provides seismic data and equipment for seismologists worldwide. His charge is to advance awareness and understanding of seismology and earth science while inspiring careers in geophysics. The IRIS EPO Program provides products and activities for a variety of audiences, including the general public, K-12 students and educators, undergraduate and graduate students, and college faculty. Activities include teacher, college faculty, and early career investigator workshops, seismic data analysis tools and educational seismographs, recent earthquake teachable moment slide sets, a public lecture series, undergraduate summer internships, museum displays, and publications (animations, classroom modules, website materials, educational posters).
John Taber, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
Education: BA Physics, Swarthmore College, PhD Geophysics, University of Washington;
Appointments and Professional Experience: Associate Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University (84-89), Post-doctoral Fellow, Research Fellow, then Earthquake Commission Fellow, Victoria University of Wellington (89-01), Program Manager, then Director, IRIS Education and Public Outreach Program (01-Present).
Service: NAGT ExCom (13-Present), Led InTeGrate curriculum workshop on Engineering, Sustainability and the Geosciences (13), Co-chair, IASPEI Commission on Education and Outreach (03-Present), UNAVCO E&O Advisory Committee (05-Present), EarthScope E&O Steering Committee (05-present), Deep Earth Academy review panel (11), Co-PI, Earth Science Literacy Initiative (08-09), Geo-Education review panel (06), E&O program plan creation team for NEES Consortium (04), Past president: New Zealand Geophysical Society, Management Committee, New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (99-01), Initiated the Quake Trackers project, a New Zealand national earthquake education program for schools (97-01).
Councilor-at-Large
Jennifer Wenner is a Professor of Geology at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Her expertise is igneous petrology and geochemistry, focused on arc magmatism and the formation of continental crust; and geoscience education, focused on the teaching and learning of quantitative skills in the geosciences. At Oshkosh, she teaches Physical Geology, Mineralogy, Petrology, Geochemistry, and field courses to Hawaii and Eastern California. She is also the co-editor of
The Math You Need, When You Need It, quantitative resources for students in introductory geoscience (an NAGT sponsored project) and
Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences. She has designed and organized 8 workshops focused on increasing quantitative skills in the geosciences, has helped to facilitate 8 other workshops focused on teaching, and has attended 14 other workshops designed to improve teaching.
Education: BA, Geology, Carleton College; PhD, Geology, Boston University. Professional Experience : Professor of Geology, UW Oshkosh (2000-present). Professional Activity: PI for NSF CCLI Phase 1 (2008-2012) and CCLI Phase 2 grants (2010-2015); PI for NSF Petrology and Geochemistry Grant (2014-2017). Professional Service: Panelist for NSF (Petrology/Geochemistry, REU, CCLI), reviewer for JGE, Numeracy, Bulletin of Volcanology, Eos; undergraduate research advisor to 29 undergraduates (2000-present).
