AIBS Education and Outreach Office Expands in 2007 under New Leadership

Contact: rogrady@aibs.org

1 January 2007. The AIBS Education and Outreach Office enters 2007 welcoming new staff and bidding fond farewell to departing staff. Susan Musante, the outgoing manager and head of the office, has left AIBS to work on community education projects near her Virginia home in the Shenandoah Valley. She leaves AIBS with a broad portfolio of successful and respected programs to carry on and build upon.

Dr. Samantha Romanello Katz will join the AIBS staff in late January 2007 as Director of Education and Outreach. Dr. Katz is currently based in Colorado, working on education and training activities for the Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge (SEEK), the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), and the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Office. She holds a B.A. in English and a B.Sc. in Environmental Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo; a M.Sc. in Curriculum and Instruction from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from Ohio State University (see http://lno.lternet.edu/personnel/sambio.html ).

Dr. Katz has extensive knowledge, training and experience in managing and coordinating science/environmental programs, including: project management and facilitation; budgeting and leveraging projects; sourcing, scheduling and managing trainers; and curriculum design and development. Her experience includes nine years leading and supervising workshops in science and environmental education program development at the local, state and national levels, six years teaching at the college level, and five years in university administration. In 2000, she was a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow. During her year at the Department of Commerce, she was special assistant to the Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on education-related affairs. She helped to coordinate and focus a national education program for NOAA and worked closely with the chair and executive director of the NOAA Science Advisory Board to develop, plan, and execute top-level government meetings.

Additional staffing for the AIBS Education and Outreach Office will be provided on the associate level by Abraham Parker, who is remaining with AIBS until March 2007 before heading off to other employment, and by new arrival Sharon Potter, who is also the webmaster for the AIBS education website, ActionBioscience.org

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