Janet Ash joined BSCS as the Director of Finance and Operations in July 2022. In her role, Janet is responsible for the budget, accounting, and finance of BSCS as well as data management and process planning. Prior to joining BSCS, Janet served as Director of Finance and Administration for other local non-profits. She is a former owner/manager of several businesses. Janet earned her MBA from Regis University and BS in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University and is currently pursuing her PhD in Business from the University of Denver. She is a Project Management Professional (PMP) as certified by the Project Management Institute.
When not working on her dissertation, Janet enjoys reading for pleasure, watching football – Go Broncos!, and enjoying beautiful Colorado.
Nancy Hopkins-Evans joined BSCS Science Learning as the Associate Director for Program Impact in June of 2022. As a former college chemistry professor, she understands and cares deeply about students having exceptional learning experiences in science. These experiences that leverage students’ communities and cultures support their understanding of science concepts using phenomena and problems to figure out science ideas instead of learning about science through memorization of facts and theories. She has worked in large and small school systems developing and implementing curriculum, professional learning and assessments aligned to a variety of state standards including, the common core state standards, and the Next Generation Science Standards. She presents at conferences and leads professional learning for teachers, principals, directors, and superintendents focused on experiences and activities that support effective teaching and learning for ALL students particularly those from under-served and underestimated communities. She recently served on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee to develop the consensus study report entitled, Call to Action for Science Education, Building Opportunity for the Future. She holds degrees in chemistry from Chestnut Hill College and Villanova University and earned a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Molly Stuhlsatz is the Associate Director for People and Culture, Chair of the Advocate Council, and a Senior Research Scientist at BSCS Science Learning.
As someone who has dedicated more than 20 years to BSCS, Molly is deeply committed to nurturing organizational culture. Her goal is to make BSCS the best workplace it can be–where people can collaborate, learn, and grow. She appreciates the leadership of her fellow advocates on the Advocate Council, who share her passion for BSCS’s people and culture.
Molly has led countless research and evaluation projects throughout her career. She loves to think up new ways to investigate how science education interventions impact student and teacher outcomes. Molly enjoys working on problems of measurement and how we better assess student cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in our research studies. She also loves to mentor and coach new researchers in finding their research identity. Currently, she serves as co-PI on multiple National Science Foundation studies, as well as an Education Innovation and Research project funded by the Department of Education.
Through her connections to the people and the work at BSCS, Molly is motivated to continue to lead the way in transforming science education and ultimately science, to include voices that have traditionally been excluded, and to inspire all teachers and students to consider how science intersects with their lives outside of school.
Molly holds a BA in Sociology and an MA in Sociology from the University of Colorado. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, knitting, and riding vintage Vespa and Lambretta motor scooters.
Lauren Novo joined BSCS as the Director of Communications and Advancement in August 2017. With nearly a decade of communications agency experience, she has represented brands ranging from global tourism destinations and Fortune 500 companies to national sports brands and nonprofit organizations.
Her career in communications has consistently intersected with science and research.
While serving as the public relations representative for Aruba, Lauren promoted the Caribbean island’s green energy plan and sustainability efforts – successfully landing exclusive coverage across Bloomberg, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal. During her time in sports PR, she explored and communicated everything from concussion research to myofascial release techniques. But her passion for the nonprofit sector began while spearheading communications efforts for Kidz1stFund, a nonprofit dedicated to finding a cure for Fanconi anemia. It was personally fulfilling to translate medical advancements into national media exposure, contributing to the organization’s larger goals of raising research funding.
Lauren is eager to leverage her expertise in strategic planning, partnership development, media relations, creative and technical writing, and event planning to help BSCS expand its impact and influence on science education.
Lauren graduated summa cum laude from Florida State University with dual B.A. degrees in communications and creative writing. Born and raised in Florida, she is finally fulfilling her lifelong dream of living in Colorado. She spends her spare time running half marathons, hiking beautiful mountains and trails, and rooting for the Denver Broncos.
Dr. Lindsey Mohan joined BSCS as a Research Scientist in May 2017. Her expertise is in instructional materials design and earth and environmental science learning.
Prior to joining BSCS, Lindsey served as a faculty member for the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame. In this role, Lindsey taught courses on science assessment and middle school methods in the Master’s in Education program. She also supervised early career teachers in grades 2-12 in Catholic schools impacting underserved student populations and their families.
Between the time she completed her doctorate studies and returned to educational design work, Lindsey taught middle school earth science in a rural, Title 1 public school in Texas. This experience provided opportunities for Lindsey to put into practice the instructional approaches and strategies she learned about and advocated for throughout her graduate studies. The successes and struggles she experienced as a classroom teacher were transformative in her educational preparation.
Lindsey specializes in student learning and instructional materials design in earth and environmental science. Lindsey has designed resources for teachers, for example, serving as the Climate Education manager at National Geographic Society. This work included developing a series of professional development guides for teachers called the Environmental Literacy Teacher Guides, designing online educator courses in environmental literacy topics, and collaborating with informal science institutions and non-profits on a variety of projects. Prior to her work with National Geographic Society, Lindsey was an integral member of the development team for a carbon cycle learning progression as part of her role with the Environmental Literacy Project at Michigan State University.
In recent years, Lindsey has served as a writer and collaborator on synthesis projects, including Spatial Thinking Concepts and Skills Progression, A Roadmap for 21st Geography Education, Guidelines for Assessing High Quality Instructional Products, and A Synthesis of Math/Science Teacher Leadership Development Programs: Consensus Findings and Recommendations.
Lindsey has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology from Michigan State University. Her dissertation focused on productive discourse in science classrooms.
When Lindsey isn’t working, she spends her free time in the outdoors hiking, kayaking, and sailing with her husband and twin boys.
Jody Bintz, MA, serves as Senior Science Educator, Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships, and Director, Professional Learning with BSCS Science Learning. She works primarily in the areas of leadership development and teacher professional learning.
Ms. Bintz has designed and led a variety of programs to develop organizational leadership capacity and enhance the knowledge and skills of professional development leaders in various sites across the country, particularly as related to implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). She directs the BSCS National Academy for Curriculum Leadership (NACL). This work included a six-year partnership with Washington State LASER and involved nearly 30 secondary science leadership teams and 20 state-wide leaders. She served as the principal investigator for a research study to test the influence of the NACL leadership development model on student achievement. Also as a principal investigator, she spearheaded a synthesis study focused on teacher leadership development. Bintz serves as co-principal investigator of an efficacy study of the professional development program, STeLLA (Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis), and its impact on high school biology student learning and teacher practice. With a vision of developing tools and processes to advance the implementation of the NGSS, she leads a project involving collaborators from the K-12 Alliance at WestEd, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Learning Innovations at WestEd, and Achieve, Inc.
Before joining BSCS, Ms. Bintz served as an instructional services consultant with Loess Hills AEA 13 in southwest Iowa. Her responsibilities included serving on the Iowa Support Team for Schools in Need of Improvement, strategic school improvement and professional development planning, and designing and leading professional development activities with K-12 science teachers focused on curriculum, instruction, assessment, technology integration, and the integration of reading strategies. Ms. Bintz taught high school science and coached in Treynor, Iowa. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of Northern Iowa and her Master of Arts degree in Science Education from University of Northern Iowa.
Daniel Edelson joined BSCS as Executive Director in January 2015. He brings significant experience as a curriculum and educational software developer, educational researcher, and advocate for science and social studies education to this role.
Before coming to BSCS, Dr. Edelson was Vice President for Education at the National Geographic Society from 2007-14. During this time, he also served as Executive Director of the National Geographic Education Foundation, overseeing a $3.5M annual grantmaking program. In these roles, Dr. Edelson led National Geographic’s educational outreach and reform efforts.
At National Geographic, Dr. Edelson oversaw the creation of the Society’s award-winning NatGeoEd.org education portal, the launch of educational citizen science and interactive mapping initiatives, and the establishment of an innovative online professional development program for teachers. He also led a 5-year capacity and leadership development initiative for the 54 members of the National Geographic Network of Alliances for Geographic Education, and he served as the Principal Investigator for an NSF-funded national consensus project that created a road map for improving geography education over the next decade.
From 1993-2007, Dr. Edelson was on the faculty of Northwestern University with a joint appointment in the School of Education and Social Policy (Learning Sciences) and the School of Engineering (Computer Science). At Northwestern, he conducted a program of integrated research and development focused on improving earth and environmental science education. In this work, he developed innovative curriculum materials and software, as well as professional development programs, for middle and high school science. He also participated in several district-level efforts to implement instructional reform in Chicago Public Schools and elsewhere. In the context of these development and implementation efforts, Dr. Edelson conducted research on design, student motivation and learning, and teacher professional development.
As a curriculum and software developer, Dr. Edelson is the author of Investigations in Environmental Science: A Case-Based Approach to the Study of Environmental Systems, a textbook for high school environmental science, and contributed to Project-Based Inquiry Science and Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST), two comprehensive middle school science programs. He also developed National Geographic FieldScope, My World GIS, and WorldWatcher, educational software applications for visualizing and analyzing geographic data. All of these works were the products of NSF R&D grants.
As a researcher and advocate, Dr. Edelson has written extensively on geoscience, geography, and environmental science education, motivation, instructional design, educational technology and teacher professional development. He is an author or co-author on more than 50 papers in academic journals, books and conference proceedings, including The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, The International Handbook on Science Education, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and the Journal of Research on Science Teaching. In 2014, a collection of his essays was compiled into a book entitled GeoLearning: Thoughts on Geography and Education.
Dr. Edelson received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University and his B.S. in Engineering Sciences from Yale University. In 2013, he received the President’s Award from the National Council for Geographic Education.