Past Featured Speakers
2011 Featured Speakers (top)
Dr. Carl Wieman, Associate Director of Science for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and 2001 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics, kicked off the 2011 UTeach Institute–NMSI Conference held in Austin on May 24-26. Before being confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the OSTP Associate Director of Science, Dr. Wieman was a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado. He also worked as a professor of physics and Director of Collaborative Science Education Initiatives at the University of British Columbia. He has conducted extensive research in atomic and laser physics, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, with Eric Allin Cornell, for their production of the first true Bose-Einstein condensate. Dr. Wieman also has worked extensively on initiatives to improve science education. He was the founding Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science Education and has received numerous science education awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award (2001), the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. University Professor of the Year Award (2004), and the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Oersted Medal (2007). Dr. Wieman received his B.A. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1977.
Dr. Linda Rosen, Chief Executive Officer of Change the Equation, provided the keynote dinner speech. Dr. Rosen’s professional career has focused on scaling up research based best practices in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning and in helping states and localities adopt and adapt these practices to ensure long-term sustainability and success. As the Chief Executive Officer of Change the Equation, a non-profit, non-partisan CEO-led initiative focused on solving America’s innovation problem, she leads a nationwide network of more than 110 CEOs who pledge to connect and align their work to transform STEM learning in the U.S. Previously, she was the Senior Vice President for the National Alliance of Business, where she worked with companies to articulate their STEM vision for the original “No Child Left Behind” legislation. She served as Senior Advisor to Secretary Richard W. Riley on math and science by providing counsel department-wide on STEM initiatives. She led the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (known as the John Glenn Commission) as Executive Director. Dr. Rosen also has served as the Executive Director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Academy of Sciences’ Associate Executive Director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board. Dr. Rosen has taught mathematics from high school through the graduate level. She credits her seventh-grade math teacher for sparking her excitement and for dedicating her life’s work to improving STEM learning outcomes for all children, especially girls and students of color.
Closing plenary speakers included Dr. Jere Confrey, Senior Research Fellow and Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Professor at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation in the College of Education at North Carolina State University, and Dr. Alan Maloney, Senior Research Fellow, also at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, and Extension Associate Professor of Mathematics Education.
Dr. Confrey co-founded UTeach. She served on the National Validation Committee on the Common Core Standards and was Vice Chairman of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Academy of Sciences from 1998 to 2004. She chaired the National Research Council‘s (NRC) committee that produced On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness and was a coauthor of the NRC’s Scientific Research in Education. She founded the SummerMath program for young women at Mount Holyoke College and co-founded SummerMath for Teachers. She currently designs diagnostic assessments using wireless devices for rational numbers and learning trajectories. Dr. Confrey received a Ph.D. in mathematics education from Cornell University.
Dr. Maloney’s background is in the biological sciences. He has designed mathematics educational software, including Graphs N Glyphs, and has conducted research in mathematics education for the past 10 years. His research interests include the design and implementation of diagnostic assessments for rational number reasoning and the design of innovative technology for mathematics and science education. He is the research coordinator for the Friday Institute’s DELTA math educational group and co-PI of the LPP-Sync project. He also serves as coordinator of the Friday Institute’s Brown Bag and Voices of Innovation seminar series. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.
2010 Featured Speakers (top)
Keynote Address
Sally Ride, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Sally Ride Science; Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of California San Diego
Dr. Sally K. Ride: UTeach Conference Keynote Address from UTeach Institute on Vimeo.
Dr. Ride, former NASA Astronaut, delivered the keynote address, fascinating the audience with images taken from space during her career as an astronaut to illustrate the growing need for math and science to address many of the problems facing the world. Ride, best known as America’s first woman in space, founded Sally Ride Science in 2001, which is dedicated to supporting girls’ and boys’ interests in science and technology.
Plenary Session:
Moving from Implementing Change to Sustaining Outcomes
Gene Hall, Ph.D., Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Dr. Gene Hall: Moving From Implementing Change to Sustaining Outcomes from UTeach Institute on Vimeo.
Dr. Gene Hall, Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, an expert on understanding change processes in organizational settings, stressed the key role that the nationwide network of UTeach programs can play in sustaining this innovation. His presentation can be downloaded here.
Dr. Hall is the lead architect of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM), which is a widely respected way to understand, evaluate, and lead change processes. His current work includes several studies of the relationships between principal change facilitator styles and student learning.
