IBP People

Ashanti Johnson
Executive Director

ajohnson@ibparticipation.org

Dr. Ashanti Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Oceanography at the University of South Florida (USF) and the Executive Director of the Institute for Broadening Participation. She received her Ph.D. (1999) in Oceanography from Texas A&M University. In addition to conducting aquatic radiogeochemistry research, Dr. Johnson also engages in scholarly activities designed to facilitate research and professional development experiences for underrepresented minority students. She serves as the Director of the Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success in Earth System Science Initiative, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation USF Bridge to the Doctorate Program and the Alfred Sloan Foundation's Minority Ph ...Read more.

Sandra Thomas
Executive Director Emeritus

sthomas@ibparticipation.org

Sandy is the former Executive Director of IBP and now serves as a senior staff member focusing on directing the NSF supported Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Project as well as general operations. Formerly she was the Vice President for Programs at a small non-profit educational organization on the coast of Maine. Prior to that she developed and directed two fellowship programs based at the University of Michigan. One was sponsored by USAID for graduate students who served overseas on two year assignments and the other was an interdisciplinary fellowship program supported by the MacArthur Foundation. She has over twenty five years of experience in the administration of science and education projects. Her experience includes all aspects of project management and studen ...Read more.

Susie Valaitis
Senior Associate Director

svalaitis@ibparticipation.org

Susie has more than 12 years of experience in nonprofit administration, project development and implementation, community development, and website and materials design and implementation. She has worked with IBP since 2004 to support students in STEM pathways and to increase participation at all levels of STEM education. She previously served as Executive Directorof Medomak Valley Land Trust, a land conservation organization, and before that she provided community services and development to residents of Maine's year-round island communities. She holds a BA in English and American Literature from Brown University as well as a Certificate in Mediation from the University of Southern Maine.

Chris Cash
Director of Student Assistance Programs

ccash@ibparticipation.org

Chris is the Director of Student Assistance Programs for IBP. Chris identifies and assists promising students in locating and applying to undergraduate summer research and graduate programs at colleges and universities throughout the United States. She has worked for the last several years in the area of marine fisheries education and outreach. She was formerly a marine officer and fellowship coordinator at the Island Institute, a non-profit educational organization located in mid-coast Maine. Chris continues to stay involved with Maine marine projects and initiatives.

Liv Detrick
Director of Web Development
Project Manager, OSSI

ldetrick@ibparticipation.org

As the Project Manager for IBP's NASA One Stop Shop Initiative (OSSI) project, Liv coordinates OSSI-related recruitment activities, assists students in completing their applications, and coordinates activities to increase faculty networking and student/faculty awareness of OSSI. She works closely with IBP's project managers and Regional Specialist team to coordinate recruitment and outreach, and plays a leading role in designing and creating IBP materials. Additionally, Liv contributes to grantswriting and project development at IBP, and serves as IBP's web developer. Liv has a BS in Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College and an MS in Geography from Penn State University.

Allyson Fauver
Director of Policy & Analysis
Project Manager, Pathways to Ocean Sciences

afauver@ibparticipation.org

As co-PI and Project Manager for IBP's Pathways to Ocean Sciences project, Allyson works with faculty, administrators and students to increase networking and support diversity in the National Science Foundation's ocean sciences Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs. She also contributes to grantswriting and project development at IBP, and designs outreach materials that present practical, hands-on strategies for supporting diversity within a broader framework that speaks to diversity as a national imperative. She holds a BA in International Development Studies from Marlboro College, and a JD with a focus on energy policy and natural resources law from the University of Maine School of Law.

Dana Saywell
Director of Content Systems

dsaywell@ibparticipation.org

Dana is responsible for overseeing the design, implementation and maintenance of relational databases to support IBP's dynamic, content driven web portals. She has worked with IBP to effectively build an extensive content management infrastructure for gathering, storing and exchanging information. She is a leader in web design and development processes and works in tandem with IBP's Web Developer to implement a variety of projects. Additionally she works closely with IBP's Program Managers to address and expand content needs for web and database development projects. Dana plays a leadership role in IBP's project development, grant writing, outreach and evaluation activities. She has worked for several years in community development and completed her graduate studies in Agriculture Develop ...Read more.

David Siegfried
Director of Assessment Processes
Project Manager, Pathways to Engineering

dsiegfried@ibparticipation.org

David joined IBP in 2008 and is responsible for the development and integration of assessment processes across all of IBP's projects and programs. As the project manager for IBP’s Pathways to Engineering project, funded under a grant from the NSF-EEC, he leads the development and implementation of tools and research to support undergraduate engineering students and faculty. He is also the internal evaluator responsible for process documentation and assessment for IBP's NASA One Stop Shop Initiative (OSSI) project. As a former software developer and project manager, David also contributes to the design and development of IBP’s data and content management systems. He holds a BS in Leadership and Organizational Studies from the University of Southern Maine and an MBA in Organizational and ...Read more.

Leslie Fuller
Administrative and Program Associate

lfuller@ibparticipation.org

Leslie Fuller joined the Institute for Broadening Participation in 2004. She is responsible for researching inquiries directed to IBP and responding to students, faculty and staff with requested information. She also works with IBP STEM programs to increase connectivity and networking within and between those programs. Leslie's background is in Library Science. She was formerly the Circulation Librarian at the University Museum Library in Philadelphia, Catalog Assistant at the G.W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum, and the coordinator of the Island Libraries Program on the coast of Maine. She held the position of Resource Specialist at the Island Institute in Rockland, Maine for nine years. She received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Cynthia Charles
Database Specialist
Manager, Student Directory

ccharles@ibparticipation.org

Cynthia has collected, monitored and organized student data for the IGERT National Recruitment Program and the Institute for Broadening Participation for the past six years. Experienced in Microsoft Access, she monitors and improves data accuracy, quality and consistency.

Lois Ricciardi
Database Assistant
Project Coordinator, MS PHD'S

pdp@msphds.org

Lois provides administrative and logistical management for the Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success (MS PHD'S) program - an NSF funded initiative to provide professional development activities for underrepresented groups in Earth System Sciences. She also works for the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in human resources and the Florida Humanities Council as an independent contractor assisting with development of summer workshops for K-12 teachers. Lois holds a degree in English with a major in professional and technical writing and a minor in literature.

LaTanya Turner
Outreach Specialist
Assistant Coordinator, MS PHD'S

lturner@ibparticipation.org

LaTanya provides administrative and logistical management support for the Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success (MS PHD'S) program -- an NSF funded initiative to provide professional development activities for underrepresented groups in Earth System Sciences. LaTanya has ten plus years in event planning and also currently works as an Executive Meetings Specialist within Starwood Hotels. LaTanya hold a BS in Horticulture and a minor in Business Administration from Texas A & M University.

Steve Conry
Information Technology Specialist

Steve has twelve years experience, building, networking, protecting, and supporting server and workstation computers,in many venues, from banking to government offices, to library's. He is a lifelong furniture maker, using traditonal hand tools and methods, and an avid gardener, and reader.

Carolynn Molleur
Finance Manager

Carolynn has over 15 year's consulting experience providing accounting and personnel support to professional corporations in the Boston area. Prior to consulting she was the comptroller of a large landscape architecture firm. Her education background includes business instruction at the high school and adult level. She holds a BS in Business Education from Salem State University. Carolynn joined IBP in 2009.

Charlie Witherell
Database Consultant

cwitherell@ibparticipation.org

Charlie has 34 years of experience at IBM designing, implementing and managing online networking systems ranging from small banks and manufacturers to large insurance companies, airlines, and defense industries. As a Senior IT Specialist in IBM's Consulting Practice, he was responsible for the network and systems management implementations at several very large companies. These implementations managed everything from Mainframes and servers to UNIX workstations and desktop PCs.

Steven H. Abbott
Associate Director for Recruitment and Student Affairs

Steven Abbott has committed his career to serving in the field of higher education. For the past five and a half years, Mr. Abbott has held the position of Associate Director for Recruitment and Student Affairs for The Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP). His role was to supervise the efforts at Harvard related to outreach and recruitment of both graduate and undergraduate Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students. Also under his direction were initiatives directed at retention, and community and student development for Native students.

Mr. Abbott earned his B.A. in Native American Studies, from Bates College, and is completing his M.A. from Dart ...Read more.

Bernard Batson
Program Director, College of Engineering, University of South Florida

Batson previously coordinated the Sensory Knowledge-based Interface Science (SKINS) IGERT, University of South Florida. Bernard also served for three years as a Program Coordinator for the McNair Scholars Program/Honors College at USF. In that capacity, he assisted faculty from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions with the development of undergraduate research mentoring programs modeled after USF's successful Ronald McNair Scholars Program. Bernard has rendered graduate/medical school and fellowship application assistance to McNair alumni and other USF students. Prior to that appointment Bernard served as Coordinator of Multicultural Admissions, ...Read more.

Vanessa Green
Director of the Higher Education and Diversity Center, Coastal Margin Observation and Predication (CMOP)

CMOP is a multi-institutional Center dedicated to coastal margins that are important interfaces between land and oceans. The center studies coastal margins (watersheds, estuaries, plume dynamics, nutrient fluxes, tides, microbial communities, estuary turbidity maximum, the ocean continental shelf) to gain a better understanding of river-to-ocean ecosystems.

This is a collaborative effort between several academic and industry partners, including Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University, and University of Washington. The center has over 40 researchers, educators and engineers. Green is the Director for Higher Education and Diversity. She has worked with the Af ...Read more.

Sara Hernandez
Director of Diversity Programs, Engineering College, Cornell University

Hernandez is the Director of Diversity Programs in Engineering at Cornell University. She has served as the advisor to the Society of Women Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Hernandez serves on the university Judicial Hearing Board and the Cornell Co-op Employer Advisory Board. She is also an alumna advisor to Psi Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. In the local community, she serves as a board member for One to One Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Ithaca & Tompkins County as well as for the Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County. In addition, she is active in the Eleanor Roosevelt Fund, an organization providing no-interest emergency micro-loans to immigrants an ...Read more.

Carole Hom
Academic Coordinator, Evolution and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences, University of California, Davis

Hom received a doctorate in Ecology at the University of Tennesee, with a focus on theoretical ecology and herpetology. As an instructor, program administrator, researcher and leader, Carole Hom is highly regarded by deans, faculty, students and staff alike. She is called "visionary" in her pursuit of a synthesis of math and biology. And she has extended this passion into the classroom as academic coordinator for a number of major training programs at UC Davis. Recognizing her outstanding accomplishments, the Academic Federation has awarded Hom the 2005 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award. The honor is given annually to recognize a distinguished career in research, teaching and/or ...Read more.

Carmen Lopez
Executive Director of College Horizons

Lopez is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and is from the Forest Lake area of Black Mesa, Arizona and she also grew up in Farmington, New Mexico. Mrs. Lopez is of the Bitter Water clan born for the Anglo clan; her maternal grandfather's clan is Many Goats and her paternal grandfather's clan is Anglo.

Lopez recently served for five years as the Executive Director of the Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) located in Cambridge, MA. In her efforts to build a vibrant intellectual community committed to Native American Studies at Harvard, Mrs. Lopez oversaw the operation of the university-wide Interfaculty Initiative which focused on American Indian, Alaska Native, and N ...Read more.

Nina Maung-Gaona
Assistant Dean for Diversity, the Graduate School

Nina Maung-Gaona is the Assistant Dean for Diversity and oversees two major graduate level initiatives (1) the New York State funded W. Burghardt Turner Fellowship Program and (2) NSF funded AGEP Program. She manages the day-to-day operations of the Center for Inclusive Education. She currently chairs a diversity fellowship committee and has served on other committees and boards such as the Middle States Reaccreditation Committee and the Middle Country Public School District Library Board. She has ten years of experience in educational programming employed first by the United Nations. She obtained a BA degree in Sociology (with distinction) with a winning an honors thesis correlating race an ...Read more.

Melvin Monette
Director of Graduate Fellowship and Special Programs

Dedicated to higher education and diversity issues, Melvin Monette most recently served as the Director for Student Recruitment for the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. During his service at U of M, he was a member of the Executive Board of the Midwest Center for Lifelong Learning in Public Health, served the Transgender Commission and was Chairperson of the Scholarship Task Force, as well as the Assistant for a RWJF National Quality Improvement Research Project. Outside work, Mr. Monette continued his commitment to diversity and education by providing service to the Two Feathers Endowment, through the Saint Paul Foundation Spectrum Trust, working with local high schools to a ...Read more.

Sonia Rodriguez
Senior Administrator for the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity

Sonia Rodriguez has over twenty years of experience in the areas of recruitment, admissions, fellowships and program management at the University of Southern California. She currently serves as the Senior Administrator for the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity. Prior to that, Ms. Rodriguez served 13 years as the Director of Fellowships and Minority Affairs for the Graduate School, where she was responsible for the coordination of USC's All-University Predoctoral Diversity Fellowship and the financial management of over $4 million dollars in student aid funds. She often advises students and groups on fellowships and other types of student aid and volunteers her time to participate ...Read more.

Gail Smith
Minority Access/Graduate Networking in the Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (MAGNET-STEM II)

Gail Smith, currently serving as acting assistant provost at The Graduate Center of New York, is the principal investigator and program director of the NSF/CUNY AGEP and the NIH/Bridges to the Doctorate Programs.

Gail received her Ph.D. in classical philology from New York University with a thesis entitled The Importance of Miracle to the Religion of Plutarch of Chaeroneia. Since 1999 she has served as Principal Investigator/Program Director for two CUNY-wide graduate education programs geared toward broadening participation in the STEM and SBE sciences: the National Institutes of Health/Bridges to the Doctorate Program and the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Educat ...Read more.

Yolanda Treviño
Assistant Dean of Research and the University Graduate School and AGEP Project Director

Yolanda Treviño is Assistant Dean of Research and the University Graduate School and AGEP Project Director, Indiana University Midwest Crossroads AGEP Alliance. This is an excerpt from one of her recent newsletters:

''How do we begin to create change in the university system? We begin with participation. And by ''we,'' I mean students, faculty and administrators who have the ability to tap into the resources provided to us by the NSF AGEP grant. AGEP resources are to promote change - changes within departments and programs, changes to the wider system, changes that lead to the broadening of STEM participation at IU -- a more robust campus environment for all students and ...Read more.

Renetta Garrison Tull
Program Director, PROMISE

Renetta Garrison Tull, PhD is the director of PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). PROMISE: Maryland's AGEP is an alliance of the three public research universities in Maryland, led by UMBC, dedicated to the increasing the number and diversity of Ph.D. graduates in the sciences and engineering who go on to academic careers.

The alliance between UMBC, UMB, and UMCP encourages interaction between the university communities. Each university will develop its own set of activities in three areas: 1) cultivating new graduate students; 2) building a supportive community where students can excel; and 3) promoting professional development. Alt ...Read more.

DiOnetta Jones
Associate Dean and Director, Office of Minority Education, Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education

DiOnetta Jones is the Associate Dean and Director of the Office of Minority Education, Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to this appointment, she was the Director of Diversity Programs for the College of Engineering at Cornell University. She previously served as Director of Education, Training and Outreach at The National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science, Inc. (GEM). Before joining GEM, she held the position of Statewide Associate Director for California's Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement Schools Program. She also served as Director of the MESA Schools Program and the ...Read more.

Leslie Lerea
Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Director of SPIRE

Leslie S. Lerea is Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Director of the SPIRE Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Pharmacology at UNC Chapel Hill. She completed postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University and Duke University where she stayed on as a research faculty member in the department of medicine studying gene regulation and intracellular signals involved with neuronal excitability. Dr. Lerea moved from bench science to science education in 1999 when she joined the newly funded SPIRE Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. SPIRE provides multi-dimensional professional development for science rese ...Read more.

Stefan Pakulski
Community, Economic, and Organizational Development

Stefan Pakulski currently Chief Executive Officer for the Kennebec Council of Governments and town of Readfield, has over twenty years of experience as an economic advisor in community, economic, and organizational development in the U.S. and overseas. He has worked with small businesses and non-profit organizations on start-up and expansion projects in Indonesia and Egypt and with Peace Corps in Fiji. As a staff administrator and consultant with several non-profit organizations, he has led internal planning, strategy development, and program evaluation efforts. His work has covered a range of areas from small farmer extension work, to non-profit organization development, to community-ba ...Read more.

Keivan Stassun
Combining scholarly practices in research, teaching, and outreach

Keivan Stassun is Associate Professor of Astronomy at Vanderbilt University, with an adjunct position at Fisk University. Dr. Stassun serves as chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy. He is also co-director of a new NASA-funded initiative to increase the number of minorities in astronomy and space science. This new program (FASST: Fisk Astronomy and Space Science Training Program) is administered jointly between Fisk and Vanderbilt. The FASST program includes a new undergraduate astrophysics curriculum at Fisk, undergraduate and graduate research experiences, and a joint Masters-PhD program in which students may earn a Masters at ...Read more.

Claudia Alexander
Scientist & Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

claudia.j.alexander@jpl.nasa.gov

Alexander is an African American research scientist specializing in geophysics and planetary science. She has worked for the United States Geological Survey and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. As member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she was the last project manager of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter and is currently project manager and scientist of NASA's role in the European led Rosetta mission to study comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Alexander wanted to be a journalist, but her parents - who were paying for her education - wanted her to become an engineer. After a summer job at the Ames Research Center, she became interest ...Read more.

Annette de Charon
Senior Marine Education Scientist, University of Maine

De Charon began her career in ocean education/outreach at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as Education Lead for the TOPEX/Poseidon Mission. She is currently the lead developer of education and outreach materials for the NASA Aquarius sea surface salinity mission schedule to launch in 2010, and she is the Director of Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) -Ocean Systems, one of 12 Centers across the U.S. As part of her COSEE work, she has been instrumental in developing an Ocean-Climate Interface and linked tools to create online "concept maps" in a collaborative manner.

Alec Gallimore
Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Initiatives

Professor of Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, and Professor of Applied Physics, with specialization in experimental plasma physics and advanced spacecraft electric propulsion.

Dean Gallimore serves as the primary liaison between the Graduate School and the many academic units in engineering and the physical sciences. He works closely with these graduate programs on issues such as strategic planning, student recruitment, program visibility, resource allocation, student fellowships and awards, cross-disciplinary partnerships, and climate and culture as they affect graduate students.

Dean Gallimore's specific responsibilities are to:

~ Coordinate all Graduate ...Read more.

Yolanda Scott George
Deputy Director and Program Director, Human Resources Programs

Yolanda Scott George is Deputy Director and Program Director, Education and Human Resources Programs, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Her duties and responsibilities include planning, development, management, implementation, and evaluation of multi-year science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) education and educational research projects. In addition she provides technical assistance to community-based organizations, science-based organizations, schools, colleges and universities, and churches interested in developing science, mathematics and computer education initiatives.

She has served as Director of Development, Association of Science-Technology Ce ...Read more.

Charles Ichoku
Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Ichoku obtained his Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree in Surveying, Geodesy, and Photogrammetry, and his Master of Science (M.Sc) degree in Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, both from the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, in 1982 and 1987, respectively. He then proceeded to pursue his doctoral studies in France at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, where he received the Diplome d'Etudes Superieures Specialisees (DESS) degree in Remote Sensing and the Ph.D degree in Earth Sciences, in 1989 and 1993, respectively.

Ichoku worked as a research fellow at the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boker Campus, Israe ...Read more.

Zipporah Miller
Associate Director of Professional Programs and Conferences, National Science Teachers Association

Miller leads the NSTA's efforts in providing professional development and e-learning opportunities to teachers of science nationwide. She oversees NSTA's regional and national conferences, which draw more than 21,000 teachers annually; the NSTA Learning Center, an online portal where thousands of teachers pursue quality professional development resources and specific science content; and the NSTA New Science Teacher Academy for middle and high school level teachers.

Prior to her current appointment, Miller served as the K-12 science supervisor and STEM coordinator for the Prince George's County (MD) Public School System. Miller managed the science office at the Department of ...Read more.

Margaret Pippin
Research Physical Scientist, Langley Research Center

Pippin's primary research efforts focus on tropospheric chemistry, Air Quality Applied Sciences and NASA's GEO-CAPE mission in addition to education outreach. She is currently the Deputy Project Scientist for NASA Global Climate Change Education (GCCE) and PI of CAPABLE (Chemistry and Physics of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment).

CAPABLE is a permanent ground-based tropospheric chemistry measurement site in partnership with EPA and VA DEQ established to assess the relationship between high temporal resolution measurements from space and continuous in situ surface observations. While a research facility, the CAPABLE site provides an ideal location for hands-on st ...Read more.

J. Marshall Shepherd
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Georgia

Shepherd conducts research and teaches in areas related to atmospheric sciences, climatology, water cycle processes and urban climate systems. Prior to joining the UGA faculty, Shepherd was a research meteorologist in the Earth-Sun Division at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. He was also Deputy Mission Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, which launches in 2010. For the past 12 years, he has conducted research into weather and climate systems using advanced satellites, experimental aircraft, radars, and sophisticated computer models. This research seeks to understand weather processes (i.e. thunderstorms, hurricanes, rainfall) atmospheric processes and ...Read more.

Brian Bingham
Life History and the Ecology of Marine Invertebrates

I study the ecology of marine invertebrates with an emphasis on processes that connect different life history stages. Current work in my lab focuses on the effects of stress (e.g., UV light, low food availability, partial predation) on reproduction, larval behavior and early juvenile survival of echinoderms and ascidians.

I am currently studying the larvae of ascidians to determine how events that occur during the larval phase affect subsequent life stages. Some of our previous work showed that larvae of the ascidian Corella inflata are extremely sensitive to natural sunlight; even very short exposures affect survival of the larvae during their planktonic larval phase. We are now work ...Read more.

Benjamin Branch
Adjunct Professor

bdbranch@gmail.com

Dr. Benjamin Branch is presently an Adjunct professor at Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, NC. He presently teaches undergraduate computer science and engineering courses.

He has been a Post doctoral Research Associate at Oklahoma University, the Center for Spatial Analysis in Geovisualization research. His duties there included teaching one course in Geoinformatics.

1. Conduct research projects, publish refereed articles, and write research proposals for external funding

2. Assist on mentoring undergraduate students and graduate students in Geoinformatics. If so desired, serve on graduate thesis or dissertation committees when obtained graduate faculty ...Read more.

Fredericka C. Moser
Assistant Director for Research at the Maryland Sea Grant College

Dr. Fredricka C. Moser is Assistant Director for Research at the Maryland Sea Grant College. She holds a master's in Geology and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University. She completed a post doctoral position at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research as well as a AAAS fellowship with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, where she participated in international negotiations on marine issues. She currently oversees research and education activities at Sea Grant, including the Maryland Sea Grant REU.

Dr. Moser is also a member of the Pathways to Ocean Science Advisory Board.

Richard A. Wahle
Research Associate Professor

Research Interests:

Lobster Recruitment Ecology - This research aims to develop a better understanding of the influence of the ocean environment on changes in populations of the American lobster, Homarus americanus. The work investigates processes operating both before and after larval settlement. A central component of the research is a New England-wide long-term time series of lobster larval settlement, largely supported by respective state agencies and the lobster industry. Ecological research on pre- and post-settlement processes influencing lobster population dynamics has been variously supported since 1987 by NSF and three NOAA programs: Sea Grant, National Undersea Research ...Read more.

James Yoder
Vice President for Academic Programs & Dean at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Dr. James Yoder is Vice President for Academic Programs & Dean at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Before coming to WHOI, Dr. Yoder was a Professor at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island. He also served 5 years as Associate Dean in charge of the graduate program in oceanography and 1.5 years as Interim Dean of the School. Dr. Yoder has held temporary positions in the Federal Government including Program Manager at NASA Headquarters and Director of NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences. Dr. Yoder's recent research involves satellite and aircraft remote sensing of the ocean for understanding biological oceanographic processes.

Dr. Yoder is also a member ...Read more.

Carl Bonner
Director of the Center for Photonic Materials Research

Carl E. Bonner is Director of the Center for Photonic Materials Research -- an NSF sponsored Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology at Norfolk State University. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Materials Research and is professor in the Department of Chemistry at Norfolk State University.

Carl is also serving as an Advisory Board member to the Pathways to Engineering project.

Levi T. Thompson
Richard E. Balzhiser Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering

Levi Thompson is Richard E. Balzhiser Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science. He has served as the Associate Dean for Education in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.

Levi is also serving on the Advisory Board of the Pathways to Engineering Project.

Gregory E. Triplett
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Gregory E. Triplett is an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Missouri. His research involves infrared sensor development for scientific, medical and defense applications. He focuses on retention strategies for electrical and computer engineering students at both undergraduate and graduate levels and has been funded by federal agencies for basic research and research in education.

Gregory is also a member of the Pathways to Engineering Advisory Board

Chekesha Liddell Watson
Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Chekesha Liddell received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with Highest Distinction from Spelman College (1999) and a Bachelor of Materials Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (1999), [Atlanta University Center, Dual Degree Engineering Program]. She was awarded the NASA Women in Science and Engineering Scholarship to support her undergraduate work including an honors thesis on the Synthesis and Characterization of m-Aminobenzenarsonic acid, an important standard for understanding the metabolysis of arsenic in poultry. Liddell also held three internship appointments at NASA, Kennedy Space Center in the Cryogenics and External Tank Branch and the Microchemical Analysis Laborator ...Read more.

Marcia Williams
Director of the College of Engineering Sponsored Programs

Marcia Williams is the Director of the College of Engineering Sponsored Programs at North Carolina A&T. She has a B.S. in Industrial Technology, an MBA from Wake Forest and her Ph.D. in Leadership Studies from NC A&T. She directed the SRC Education Alliance Undergraduate Research Opportunities and the Intel Undergraduate Research program. She has written several papers on increasing student recruitment and retention through research programs and university and industry partnerships.

Marcia is also on the Advisory Board for the Pathways to Engineering Project.