Featured Speakers & Panels

Jim Short

Jim Short is a program director within the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Education program, where he manages the Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning portfolio. Jim oversees grantmaking aimed at preparing and supporting teachers and school and system leaders for learning environments that enable students to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need for future success.

Heidi Schweingruber

Heidi Schweingruber, PhD is director of the Board on Science Education at the National Research Council (NRC). She has been involved in many of the major projects of the board since it was formed in 2004. Heidi co-directed the study that resulted in the report A Framework for K–12 Science Education (2011), which was the first step in revising national standards for K–12 science education. She served as study director for a review of NASA’s pre-college education programs in 2008 and co-directed the study that produced the 2007 report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K–8. Heidi was an editor on the NRC reports America’s Lab Report (2006), Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood (2009), Discipline-Based Education Research (2012), STEM Integration in K–12 Education (2014), and Science Teachers' Learning (2016). She co- authored two award-winning books for practitioners that translate findings of NRC reports for a broader audience: Ready, Set, Science! Putting Research to Work in K–8 Science Classrooms (2008) and Surrounded by Science (2010).

Erika Shugart

Dr. Erika Shugart is executive director of the National Science Teaching Association. Before joining the association staff in March 2021, she served as the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), a Maryland-based professional society for more than 7,000 cell biologists worldwide. Prior to joining ASCB in 2016, Erika served as director of Communications and Marketing Strategy at the American Society for Microbiology.

Between 2003 and 2013, Erika oversaw the development of new digital media exhibitions, online experiences, and programs as deputy director of the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences. She also directed the National Academy of Sciences’ Office on Public Understanding of Science. Erika has been recognized as a leader in the fields of informal science education and science communication. In 2010, she was elected as a AAAS Fellow for distinguished contributions and leadership in public understanding and engagement in science. Shugart was a Noyce Leadership Fellow from 2012 to 2013. In 2007, the National Academy of Science awarded her with an Individual Distinguished Service Award and she shared Group Distinguished Service Awards in 2004 and 2011.

Kirsten Siebach is an assistant professor in the Rice University Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. She studies the early landscapes and climate on Mars using rover observations of rock compositions and comparisons to analogous terrains here on Earth. Kirsten is currently a member of the Science and Operations Teams for the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance and the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity. She graduated with a BA in Earth and Environmental Science and Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, completed her PhD in Geology at Caltech, and did postdoctoral work at Stony Brook University. Kristen is actively engaged in promoting education and outreach related to Earth and Planetary science and loves travel and photography (on Earth as well as Mars).

Richard Primack is a professor of Biology at Boston University with a specialization in plant ecology, conservation biology, tropical rain forest ecology, and climate change biology. He is the author of three widely used conservation biology textbooks; local co-authors have helped to produce 36 translations of these books with local examples. For nine years, Richard was editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Conservation, and served as president of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. His research has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Geographic, and other publications, and he is often interviewed on National Public Radio. Richard also frequently gives talks and writes for the general public on issues of climate change and ecology, most recently the popular book Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods.