Past Traveling Workshop Program Facilitators

Tim Bralower, Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

Tim Bralower is a professor at Penn State University. He has led development and online publishing of interdisciplinary courses in support of certificate program, Penn State-UNO distance learning program, and implementation programs for the InTeGrate project involving these materials.

James Ebert, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, State University of New York College at Oneonta

Professor Ebert is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, former chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and former Interim Dean of Science and Social Science at the State University of New York College at Oneonta where he has taught since 1985. First, as a senior member of the department and then as chair, he helped guide his department through a wave of retirements and other turnover events that have resulted in an 80% change in the faculty. Professor Ebert's research interests include carbonate sedimentology, stratigraphy, Devonian time scale calibration and geoscience education, particularly the role of dual credit courses in recruiting geoscience majors. He directs the Oneonta Earth Science Outreach Program (ESOP), which enables 28 high schools in several states to offer dual credit geoscience courses. In addition, he created and hosts the ESPRIT listserv that connects over 2000 Earth Science teachers from 27 states and 5 countries in an online professional development community.

Geoff Feiss, Provost (retired, 2009) and Professor of Geology, Emeritus, College of William and Mary

An economic geologist and geochemist, Geoff has held a wide variety of administrative posts including department chair and budget/planning dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and dean of the faculty and chief academic officer, provost, at the College of William and Mary. His administrative roles have given him extensive experience in planning and academic program development, including participation in several institutional reaccreditation exercises and numerous external reviews of earth science programs at other universities. He has been active on the national scene in geoscience education through NAGT and several K-16 NSF-funded projects and has served in leadership roles for the Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences (CCAS), the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), and GSA. He received his bachelor's from Princeton and his Ph.D. from Harvard.

Meghann Jarchow, Sustainability Program, Biology/Sustainability, University of South Dakota

I recently began an appointment as an assistant professor of sustainability at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD. I will be coordinating and teaching the core courses for the new undergraduate sustainability major that USD is beginning in Fall 2012. My research interests are in prairie ecology, agroecology, managed prairie systems, and bioenergy cropping systems. My academic training is in plant ecology and sustainable agriculture.

Melissa Lamb, Professor of Geology, University of St. Thomas

Dr. Lamb has been a professor of geology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN since 2000. She studies Basin and Range extension in southern Nevada using many tools of basin analysis. This allows for the creation of many different types of mini-projects to engage undergraduates in research, for which she received her university's Undergraduate Research and Collaborative Scholarship Faculty Award. She wears many hats in her department and teaches or have taught structure, tectonics, petrology, earth materials, earth history, introductory physical geology, environmental geology, geology of the national parks, introductory field camp, advanced field camp and the capstone. She also leads her department's Career Exploration Seminar Series.

David Matty, Professor and Dean of the College of Science, Weber State University

Dr. Matty serves as the Dean of the College of Science at Weber State University—an open enrollment, multi-mission (community college/baccalaureate/masters) institution. As Dean since 2011, Dr. Matty has been involved with the planning and design of a new science building, and with facilitating a variety of activities that include faculty professional development, reimagining undergraduate education, increasing diversity, and enhancing external grant activity. Previously, Dr. Matty was the Program Director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education, and served as chair of Central Michigan University's Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department for nine years. Dr. Matty's research areas involve igneous/metamorphic petrology and geochemistry.

Dave Mogk, Department Head, Professor of Geology, Montana State University

Dave Mogk is a metamorphic petrologist by training with long-term research interests in evolution of Archean continental crust in SW Montana, and in mid-crustal petrogenetic procescesses (migmatite formation). He has also worked on the surface chemistry of minerals using a variety of spectroscopic methods (Auger and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Time-of-Flight SIMS), life in extreme environments (Lake Vostok ice core, Yellowstone acid-sulfate hot springs), and fluid inclusions of submarine hydrothermal systems. His interests in geoscience (and STEM) education began in 1992 in response to reading Project 2061 Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1989). His first NSF/CCD project was to develop an Environmental Geology Course Using a Question-Asking Problem-Solving approach. He subsequently served as Program Officer at NSF in the Division of Undergraduate Education (1995-96). Since that time he has been involved with: teacher preparation (Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation); digital libraries (co-author of the DLESE Community Plan and the NSDL Pathways to Progress plans); geo-ed community-building events (Teaching Mineralogy workshop; Scrutiny of Undergraduate Geoscience Education; Shaping the Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education; Using Data in the Classroom); discipline-based education research (Bringing Research on Learning to the Geosciences; co-editor Earth and Mind; NRC report 2012). He is the recipient of the 2000 AGU Award for Excellence in Geophysics Education. He has also served on NSF Committees of Visitors, EarthScope Science and Education Committee, EarthChem Advisory Board, GSA Chair of Education Division and Education Committee, Associate Editor GSA Bulletin and American Mineralogist. He was recently appointed as Head of the Dept. of Earth Sciences at Montana State University.

Stephen Mulkey, President Emeritus, Unity College

Stephen Mulkey is an environmental scientist dedicated to developing undergraduate and graduate programming to build society's capacity for environmental mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Mulkey was the president of Unity College in Unity, Maine from 2011 through 2015. His leadership and forward-looking vision resulted in Unity College being the first college in the U.S. to divest its endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, and the first college in the U.S. to adopt sustainability science as the framework for all academic programming. Mulkey believes that higher education has an ethical duty to prepare generations of graduates for the extreme sustainability and climate change challenges of this century. During and after earning his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, he spent over twenty years as a forest ecologist affiliated with the Smithsonian. Mulkey has served as tenured faculty at three doctoral granting universities and as a program officer at the National Science Foundation.

Rick Oches, Bentley University

Eric A. (Rick) Oches is currently Professor of geology and environmental sciences and Chair of the Department of Natural & Applied Sciences at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Prior to joining the Bentley faculty, Rick was Associate Professor of geology and Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at University of South Florida. Rick's teaching and research interests focus on environmental sustainability and business planning to foster a more sustainable future in the context of population growth, increasing natural resource consumption, environmental degradation, and global climate change. Since coming to Bentley University, Rick's academic interests have increasingly centered on Earth and environmental science education, transdisciplinary course and curriculum development, and interdisciplinary faculty engagement to foster improved science literacy for non-STEM majors.

Randy Richardson, Professor, Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona

Randy Richardson's research interests have included the dynamics of plate tectonics, from the driving mechanism to mountain building and strain accumulation and release on plate boundaries. He has also held a series of administrative positions, from associate dean to vice president to interim department head, where he has developed interests in science education (especially quantitative literacy), faculty development, and helping geoscience departments be successful in uncertain times on issues ranging from program reviews to recruiting and retaining students.

Constance Soja, Professor of Geology, Colgate University

Dr. Soja earned her PhD at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Her passion is paleontology, specifically ancient reefs and their paleobiogeographic implications in terrane analysis. Her work with undergraduate students on the geology of southeastern Alaska (Alexander terrane) and Mongolia's Gobi Desert led to related field research in the Ural Mountains, western Siberia, and north Queensland. Dr. Soja directs Colgate's First-Year Seminar, Core Distinction, and High Distinction programs and has held annual workshops on pedagogy. In addition, she offers paleontology workshops (on fossils, dinosaurs, biomimicry applications) to teachers and also designed "Junior Paleontologist" activities for local elementary students. She is the recipient of Colgate's Professor of the Year award and was honored in 2013 with a Denison University Alumni Citation.

Barbara Tewksbury, Geosciences, Hamilton College

Barbara Tewksbury is a structural geologist, on the faculty at Hamilton College for over 35 years. She teaches courses in structural geology and tectonics, GIS, planetary geology, and an intro geo course on geology and human events in North Africa and the Middle East.

Mike Williams, Professor, Department Geosciences, University of Massachusetts

Professor Williams is a professor of structural geology, petrology, and tectonics at the University of Massachusetts. He earned his BA from Amherst College, his M.S. from Univ. of Arizona, and his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. His particular interests are in constraining P-T-t-D histories and in dating geologic events. Professor Williams was the department head of the Department of Geosciences at UMass for six years. He has been involved with a number of curriculum evaluations and curriculum reforms at UMass and has served on a number of outside review committees for colleges and universities. He is interested in teaching in the field at all levels and in finding ways to bring the field into the classroom, teaching about deep time and in using deep time as a teaching tool. Recently at UMass, his department has been working and struggling to simplify the curriculum while incorporating new aspects of the geosciences and still maintaining a strong focus on core subjects.