Renée Touchette joined BSCS in 2004. She currently serves as the Human Resources Manager and is responsible for employee relations, benefits administration, and HR operations.
Before joining BSCS, Renée served as an executive assistant in the executive offices at AccentCare, a fast growing start-up in the healthcare industry. Prior to that she spent 13 years with AeA, a trade association for the high tech industry, where she was executive director of the Los Angeles Council.
Renée holds PHR and SHRM-CP certifications. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and is active in the local Mountain States Employers Council.
Dr. Diego Rojas-Perilla is a science educator and curriculum writer at BSCS Science Learning. He holds a BA in Biology and Microbiology from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. Since joining BSCS in April 2021, Dr. Rojas-Perilla has been a key contributor as a curriculum writer and unit lead for OpenSciEd High School Physics. Additionally, he is actively involved in the Making Waves project, where his goal is to enhance public awareness and understanding of radio frequency communications and wireless technologies.
Before his current role, Dr. Rojas-Perilla served as a curriculum writer for New Visions for Public Schools in New York City. He earned his PhD at Teachers College, Columbia University, focusing on preservice science teachers under the guidance of Professor Felicia Mensah.
Guy Ollison, M.Ed., has over 25 years of experience in racially and linguistically diverse school settings, focusing on equity-centered, culturally relevant teaching strategies for high-needs, diverse students. In 2020, he joined BSCS Science Learning as a Science Educator and has led STeLLA® cohort groups and collaborated with district leaders to enhance science education through video-based analysis of practice. With experience in curriculum and professional learning development, he has worked with district and state leaders to facilitate curriculum-based professional learning experiences for instructional coaches and teachers in the implementation of high-quality curriculum.
Outside of BSCS, Guy has worked with different educational and community organizations serving marginalized communities of color. This includes serving on the board of Directors of Improve Your Tomorrow and Breakthrough Sacramento. Since 2018, Guy has worked closely with Safe Black Space to provide culturally relevant self-care strategies for people of African ancestry dealing with issues of racial stress and trauma. During this same time he has been a Board Member for Urban Charter Schools Collective, providing guidance and direction to the Superintendent of a primarily Hmong charter school.
Audrey Mohan joined BSCS as a Research Scientist in December 2012. Her expertise is in instructional materials design, evaluating instructional materials, and designing professional development. She also has expertise in crowdsourcing and mapping scientific data using cloud-based GIS.
Audrey’s current work focuses on designing instructional materials to support NGSS while also igniting a curiosity in students to want to figure out the world around them. She is currently the Associate Director of the OpenSciEd Middle School Developer’s Consortium – a project that has created Open Education Resources for middle school classrooms (www.openscied.org). She also has extensive experience in developing national consensus reports on the design and evaluation of instructional materials and professional development for both geography and science education. She was research director for the National Council for Geographic Education on the Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education project (Schell, Roth, & Mohan, 2013), co-PI on an NSF-funded project that developed a national consensus report entitled Guidelines for Assessing the Quality of Instructional Materials in Science (DGE-1445675). She was also a team member on the collaborative project between BSCS, the K-12 Alliance at WestEd, and Achieve to design and implement NextGen TIME.
She has facilitated professional development for teachers and students in the STeLLA® program, and also on using GIS and mapping technologies in the classroom. She is currently a project lead focusing on citizen science and learning with FieldScope (DRL-1010749, GEO-0627923) through the Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope project, and associated professional learning.
Audrey has a BA in History from the University of Notre Dame, an MEd in Special Education from University of Texas-Austin, and a PhD in Geography – Geography Education from Texas State University – San Marcos. Her dissertation focused on teacher efficacy and teacher professional learning in geography.
Beyond BSCS, Audrey enjoys spending time in the outdoors, traveling around the world, and spending time with her three boys and furry girl.
Janna Mahfoud joined BSCS in May 2020 as a Science Educator working across professional learning and leadership development, with a focus on transforming science teaching and learning for historically marginalized populations. She is also co-chair of the BSCS Equity and Social Justice working group.
Prior to BSCS, Janna taught 5th-8th grade science in Hawai’i, California, and Arizona. She also served as the Science & Engineering Specialist for a K-8 school district rich in cultural heritage, family ties, and global links. Janna worked in partnership with families, teachers, and other educational leaders to address structural inequities and provide quality science teaching and learning for students facing systems designed to meet the needs of dominant groups. Janna has used the lens of access and equity to guide the implementation of science instructional materials, development of professional learning tracks, and in providing coaching services to teachers, teacher-teams, site-based instructional coaches, and site administration. In her work, there is a strong emphasis on language development for multilingual students through three-dimensional science learning.
In her homebase of Phoenix, Arizona, Janna was part of the working group that developed the K-12 Arizona Science Standards and served on the Arizona Science Teachers Association Equity Task Force. Janna also completed two EdReports review cycles for grades 3-5 and 6-8 as a science content reviewer.
Janna has a BA in Natural Sciences-Chemistry from Fresno State, an MA in Teaching Elementary Education from Chaminade University, and an MA in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Connecticut. Her graduate studies focused on multi-racial identity development, education, and human rights. Janna was also a research fellow, learning with Indigenous educators in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Outside of work, Janna enjoys traveling, spending time with her spouse and two young children, and seeking out new culinary experiences.
Abraham Lo, PhD is a Senior Science Educator at BSCS Science Learning, where he designs and studies the efficacy of research-driven instructional materials and professional development programs to promote meaningful science learning for all students. He is co-PI on three NSF-funded projects to support teachers in adopting five-dimensional (5D) assessment and instruction practices (DRL 2010086 and DUE 2343911) and develop a community-driven model to enhance the coherence of preservice science teacher preparation programs (DUE 1725389). In addition, he co-led the design of the OpenSciEd middle school professional learning program and currently helps districts and states develop customized OpenSciEd implementation plans. Prior to BSCS, he was a secondary science teacher and instructional coach. Lo earned his PhD at Northwestern University and earned his BA and MSEd at the University of Pennsylvania.