David R. Brown holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and undertook postdoctoral research at UC San Diego. In 1996 he joined the faculty at Southwestern College, where he has mentored more than two dozen undergraduate researchers. He was the recipient of the 2007 Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences from the American Chemical Society’s Western Region.
Brent Cejda is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Higher Education at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In this capacity he coordinates the Community College Leadership program and serves as the Executive Director of the National Council of Instructional Administrators, an affiliate council of the American Association of Community Colleges. Cejda began his postsecondary career as a community college faculty member and held a variety of administrative appointments at community colleges in Kansas and Ohio.
Penny Coggins holds an MS and PhD in Adult and Continuing Education from Kansas State University and has been working in community colleges for over 25 years. Coggins is Vice President for Grants Development and Applied Research at Redlands Community College in El Reno, Oklahoma. She assisted in securing funding for the RCC Center of Excellence in Agriculture and has presented workshops and discussions involving undergraduate research at national and state conferences including the American Association for Community Colleges and the Oklahoma Association of Community Colleges. Coggins and her colleagues are helping establish RCC as an emerging undergraduate research institution, focusing on the overarching philosophy that “Research is Teaching”.
Nancy Hensel is the Executive Officer for the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington, D.C. Prior to assuming her current position in July 2004, she served as President of the University of Maine at Presque Isle from 1999-2004, Provost of the University of Maine at Farmington, 1995-99, and Dean of the College of Education, University of Maine at Farmington 1992-1995. She has held faculty positions at the University of Redlands and the University of Toledo. Her doctorate is in early childhood education from the University of Georgia and she holds masters’ degrees in theater and early childhood education and a BA degree in theater from San Francisco State University.
James Hewlett is Professor of Biology at Finger Lakes Community College. His research interests include the use of the Case Study Method of teaching science and integrated Project-based learning. Professor Hewlett’s active areas of scientific research include molecular indicators of stress in corals, the employment of noninvasive DNA-based mark and recapture methods in eastern red-tail hawk and North American black bear population studies, and the study of macro-level indicators of stress in tropical coral reef ecosystems.
Patricia Ann Mabrouk is Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Northeastern University (Boston, MA). Her research interests are in chemical education (active learning methods, pedagogy of graduate education and undergraduate research), green chemistry, and electroanalytical chemistry. She is passionate about undergraduate research. Over the past nineteen years she has partnered with 50 students (61% women, 18% underrepresented minorities) from a wide range of academic disciplines. Nearly one-third of her nearly 50 peer-reviewed publications have been co-authored by undergraduates.
Ann J. Murkowski, M.S., is an instructor of biology at North Seattle Community College. She has a deep interest in designing curriculum that encourages an active approach to learning biology and maintains a strong interest in documenting student learning. She has worked collaboratively with a variety of colleagues to develop interdisciplinary courses across the curriculum. Ann is also passionate about creating authentic field-based research experiences for her students, especially around issues of sustainability.
Kalyn Shea Owens, Ph.D., is an instructor of chemistry at North Seattle Community College where she has been involved in innovative course design and research around student learning. Her research focuses on the design of interdisciplinary, communitybased curriculum for science majors that weaves chemistry, biology and undergraduate research into a year-long program. Dr. Owens also has a deep interest in documenting students as they socially construct and represent their scientific thinking in a classroom.