Andi Anderson - Center Evaluator, Sound View Evaluation

Andi has led a varied life, always centered on ocean education and evaluation. A fearless trumpet calling out the charge for ocean literacy, Andi brings a complete toolkit of knowledge on evaluating community building and bringing out the successes.

 Philip Bell - PI, Associate Professor UW College of Education

Phil is the newly-named Director of the UW Institute for Science and Mathematics Education and is also a family guy and an all-around nice dude. He got his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computing from UC Boulder and his PhD from the other UC in Berkeley. He directs the ethnographic and design-based research of the Everyday Science and Technology Group. As a learning scientist, he has studied everyday cognition and expertise in science, children’s argumentation, the use of digital technologies within youth culture, the design and use of novel learning technologies, and new approaches to inquiry instruction in science. Bell is a Co-Lead of informal learning research for the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center . He has a background in human cognition and development, science education, electrical engineering, and computer science, and has built web-based learning platforms, designed and studied K-12 science curricula, and presently most of his time is spent conducting cognitive ethnographies of children’s development across social settings. A book about Phil’s work that started back in Berkeley — Internet Environments for Science Education — was released in 2004. A reasonable subtitle for the book would be “how information technologies can support the learning of science.” The web site for the book describes it in more detail.

Susan Bullerdick - Center Operations Manager, Seattle Aquarium Society

Prior to joining COSEE-OLC, Susan worked at the Seattle Aquarium and the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium as a marine educator and with the Pacific Education Institute as a program evaluator. Susan has a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences and has enjoyed many years of working with people in all types of environments. She likes to explore the outdoors from the ocean to the mountains and credits her connection to the environment from growing up near Lake Michigan.

Amanda Bruner - Education and Outreach Speacialist, SoundCitizen

Amanda joined COSEE-OLC after earning a MS from the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. She is currently a research scientist and education and outreach specialist for SoundCitizen. Amanda is an active member of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science and was a NSF teaching fellow in the Ocean and Coastal Integrated Science GK-12 Program. Her interests include dancing, making jewelry, zombie movies, endocrine disrupting compounds, best practices for retaining students in science and culturally responsive environmental education.

Tansy Clay – Education and Outreach Coordinator, UW School of Oceanography

Tansy holds a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Washington. She works as a post-doc with COSEE-OLC focusing on science outreach and education, and is the program manager for the UW OACIS GK-12 program. Tansy is interested in helping to connect scientists and current research with a broader community. In addition, her research interests are on the interactions between zooplankton morphology and small scale flows, and how these interactions affect plankton movement.

Polly Freeman – Community Outreach Consultant

Polly has a passion for educating and involving people in environmental issues and has worked in outreach for many years, including 13 at King County, where she helped start the Beach Naturalist program, now in its 12th year and thriving. Currently Polly is a free lance writer/editor and outreach specialist. She has a BA in English and a Master’s in Public Policy and loves biking, running, skiing, hiking, gardening and hanging out with her family.

Rick Keil - PI, Associate Professor, UW School of Oceanography

Rick plays ukulele, collects toy trains, is the Fleming Professor of the School of Oceanography, leads a lab that studies varied subjects such as pollutants in local waters, paleooceanography, organic matter cycling an climate change. He is committed to educating ocean scientists so that we can better serve the public.

Janice Mathisen – Marine Volunteer Community Support, Seattle Aquarium

Janice has been working at the Aquarium off and on since 1977 (when she was a toddler) with adults and children in a variety of programs. She has worked as a naturalist, an elementary and middle school teacher, and as an after-school science enrichment teacher.
Janice likes to share stories with visitors about the lives of the spineless and headless wonders on local beaches. Check out the Beach Naturalist Program!
She has a BA in Biology from New York University, a WA state teaching credential and is working on a Masters thesis (don’t ask).
 

Suzanne Perin - Graduate Student, UW College of Education

Suzanne has worked in science museums as an exhibit developer and evaluator. She has an MA in Museology (Museum Studies) from the University of Washington, and is continuing to study how people learn in the Learning Sciences doctoral program. Her research interests include how families learn together in places like aquariums, museums and in other out-of-school settings. In part, this is because she grew up exploring tide pools and beaches on the east and west coasts with her mom.

David Plude - Associate Evaluator and co-owner of Sound View Evaluation and Research

David monitors programs, gathers data, and provides technology support and collaborative input for a variety of projects. He has ten years of classroom experience with teaching high school and middle school science, study skills, and mathematics. David received his Masters degree in Education at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington and his Bachelor of Science in Physics from Saint Lawrence University in Canton, New York.

Giovanna Scalone - Graduate Student, UW College Of Education

Giovanna is a first year PhD student in the Learning Sciences at the College of Education. Her research interests include how the learning and teaching of science and ocean science in and out of school enrich, empower, and transform youth in their practice of science and ocean science; and how discourse in argumentation in science and ocean science education as well as in informal contexts is used to develop a critical stance towards the youths’ enactment of science and their everyday lives. Giovanna’s undergraduate background is in Applied Linguistics, Academic Support Programs, and T.E.S.O.L at the University of Johannesburg; and her graduate academic experience is in educational technology at the UW College of Education. Giovanna served as an English for Academic Purposes instructor as well as a Linguistics teaching assistant at the University of Johannesburg.

Kathy Sider - PI, Director of Conservation Education Seattle Aquarium

Marine science education has been the focus of Kathy’s career at the Seattle Aquarium where she currently directs the Conservation and Education section. Teaching in the field has been a lifelong passion for her and she has worked as a naturalist and guide on whalewatch boats, kayak excursions, and intertidal beach investigations. Kathy’s life on a small island in Puget Sound includes raising sheep and training the dogs that herd them.

Amy Sprenger - Program Director, Ocean Inquiry Project

Amy Sprenger is the program director for Ocean Inquiry Project, a Puget Sound based marine science education non-profit organization. She is also the education specialist for NANOOS, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems, which is the PNW's regional association for the national Integrated Ocean Observing System. Amy is interested in promoting ocean literacy and involving non-scientists in ocean science research. It is her hope that a more ocean literate public will be able to take great strides in protecting our ocean. Amy has a Masters in Science Education from Western Washington University and BS in biology from Boston College.

Fritz Stahr - PI, President, Ocean Inquiry Project

Fritz co-founded the Ocean Inquiry Project in 2000, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching marine science through on-the-water experience while conducting research in Puget Sound. He received a Ph.D. in Oceanography from UW in 1998 studying ocean physics and is currently manager of the Seaglider Fabrication Center there (http://seaglider.washington.edu). He taught oceanography classes at UW and Pierce College, and conducted research on hydrothermal vent heat-flux before his Seaglider work. Prior to graduate school he was an opto-mechanical engineer in the San Francisco bay area for a decade after graduating from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering.

Shelley Stromholt - Graduate Student, UW College of Education

Carrie Tzou - PI, UW Bothell Education Department

Carrie is a postdoctoral researcher with the LIFE Center and with COSEE-OLC. Her research interests include how to make scientific practices accessible to all students through the design of inquiry-based science curricula. Before coming to the University of Washington, Carrie earned her PhD from Northwestern University, her Masters from Vanderbilt University, and was a middle school science and health teacher.