Biographical Sketches of Consulting Experts
ANN E. AUSTIN is a professor of higher, adult, and lifelong education at Michigan State University, where she also served as the inaugural Dr. Mildred B. Erickson Distinguished Chair. Dr. Austin’s research interests, within the United States and international contexts, concern faculty careers, roles, and professional development; the academic workplace; organizational change and transformation in higher education; doctoral education; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and the improvement of teaching and learning processes in higher education. She is co–principal investigator of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning and serves on the council of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She has served as a Fulbright fellow in South Africa and as president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. In recognition of her substantial contributions to educational research, she also was named as an AERA fellow. Dr. Austin has written several books and served as a consultant for a number of universities and colleges; her international higher education work has taken her to several countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Dr. Austin received a B.A. in history from Bates College, an M.A. in American culture from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
MELANIE COOPER is the Lappan-Phillips Professor of Science Education and a professor of chemistry at Michigan State University. Her initial appointment at Clemson University was one of the first tenure track appointments in chemistry education in a chemistry department. Her research has focused on improving teaching and learning in large enrollment introductory chemistry courses, including general and organic chemistry. She has worked on how students learn to construct and use representations, problem solving, conceptual understanding, and the development of practices such as argumentation and metacognition. An outgrowth of this research is the development and assessment of evidence-driven, research-based curricula. She was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received a number of awards for excellence in teaching. She holds a B.S., an M.S., and a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester (England).
HEATHER MACDONALD has been teaching in the Department of Geology at the College of William and Mary since 1983. She was dean of Undergraduate Studies in Arts and Science from 1994 to 1996; during that time she also served as the chief transfer officer at the college. She has been chair of the Geology Department and is currently co-director of the Marine Science Minor Program. Her awards include the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award given by the College of William and Mary, an Outstanding Faculty Award given by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the Biggs Award for Excellence in Earth Science Teaching given by the Geological Society of America, and the Neil Miner Award given by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
KARL SMITH is Cooperative Learning Professor of engineering education, School of Engineering Education, at Purdue University, West Lafayette, and is in phased retirement as a Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research and development interests include building rigorous research capabilities in engineering education; the role of cooperation in learning and design; problem formulation, modeling, and knowledge engineering; and project and knowledge management. He is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and past chair of the Educational Research and Methods Division. He has served as primary investigator and co–primary investigator on several National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded projects, including two NSF Centers for Learning and Teaching and a dissemination project on course, curriculum, and laboratory improvement. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in metallurgical engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota.
CARL WIEMAN holds a joint appointment as Professor of Physics and in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. He was associate director for science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Before joining the White House, he founded the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia, and he was a President’s Teaching Scholar and Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Wieman has carried out research in a variety of areas of atomic physics and laser spectroscopy. His research has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. Dr. Wieman’s discipline-
based education research has examined a variety of innovations in teaching physics to a broad range of students, as well as students’ problem-solving skills and their beliefs about physics. The collaborative initiatives he founded are aimed at achieving departmental-wide sustainable change in undergraduate science education. He served as founding chair of the National Research Council’s Board on Science Education. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Education. Dr. Wieman received a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
WILLIAM B. WOOD is Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Emeritus, at the University of Colorado Boulder. He began his career at the California Institute of Technology, moving to the University of Colorado Boulder in 1977 as professor and chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology. He was one of the youngest members inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his pioneering research on the assembly of complex viruses that infect bacteria. His research interests more recently have included genetic control and molecular biology of axis formation, pattern formation, and sex determination in development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as biology education. Dr. Wood has won several awards for his scientific achievements, as well as the Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education from the American Society for Cell Biology. He co-chaired the National Research Council (NRC) committee that created the Summer Institute on Undergraduate Biology Education and now serves as co-director of this Summer Institute. Previous National Academies appointments include the Committee on Programs for Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in American High Schools, which authored the report Learning and Understanding; the Committee on Developmental Toxicology; and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowships Panel on Genetics and Molecular Biology. He also served as a member of the NRC Committee on Evidence on Selected Innovations in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education and was a member of the Board on Science Education. Dr. Wood received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University.