Eric Mann is an assistant professor of educational studies and a faculty member of both the Gifted Education Resource Institute and the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning at Purdue University. Dr. Mann received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from University of Connecticut. Dr. Mann’s research interests center on creativity and talent development within science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) disciplines.

I am currently investigating pre-service teachers, and other students in higher education, attitudes and perceptions of student's school interactions involving empathy. My research interests include the use of web based animated narrative vignette technologies (social simulations) as a methodology to understand cognitive and emotional responses of educators and other professionals in helping professions.

Judy Scotchmoor is Assistant Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) in Berkeley, overseeing the museum’s education and outreach efforts. Judy received her BS in Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley in 1966 and then proceeded on to a long teaching career, primarily at the middle school level. Judy began her career at UCMP as a volunteer in the fossil prep lab in 1993, before joining the staff the following year. Taking advantage of her K-12 experiences, she soon initiated teacher professional development workshops and curriculum development focusing on evolution, paleontology, the geosciences, and their intersection reflected in the biodiversity that we see today. With a creative group of graduate students placing UCMP as a pioneer in web-based technology, she began to see the potential of the Internet to share science with a broad and diverse audience. Today she is the Project Coordinator of three award-winning websites: The Paleontology Portal, Understanding Evolution, and Understanding Science. She was also Project Coordinator for Geosciences in Alaska, a field and research opportunity for teachers and is the editor/author of three books to support K-16 teaching: Evolution: Investigating the evidence, Learning from the Fossil Record, and Dinosaurs: The science behind the stories. Judy was the recipient of the Joseph T. Gregory Award for outstanding service to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2004, the recipient of the American Institute of Biological Sciences Education Award in 2006, and in 2009 was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow “for leadership in defending teaching of evolution and quality science education through nationally recognized websites on these issues and through leadership of the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science."

Nancy Vye, Ph.D is Principal Research Scientist in the College of Education at the University of Washington. Previously, she was Co-Director of the Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on challenge-based learning and formative assessment in classroom settings. She is particularly interested in uses of technology for designing curricula and assessment tools that enhance teaching and learning. Vye's R & D work includes The Arts for Learning Lessons Project, an arts-integrated literacy curriculum for elementary students; The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury, a mathematics problem solving series, Schools for Thought, a technology-based, educational reform initiative; Betty's Brain, a pedagogical computer agent that teaches qualitative reasoning, and most recently, STARLegacy software that supports problem-based learning.

Katherine Perkins is Director of the PhET Interactive Simulations Project and Associate Professor of Physics (Attendant Rank) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She also serves as Director of the CU Science Education Initiative (SEI) – an innovative initiative to improve undergraduate science education through department-based efforts where faculty partner with science teaching fellows to define learning goals, integrate research-based teaching strategies, and measure results. Her research focuses on pedagogically-effective design and use of simulations, students’ beliefs about science, and sustainable course reform. She has published over 30 papers related to science education.