WWNFF Leadership Program for Teachers - 2001 Enviormental Science Institute



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·	Lecturers
·	Georgia Dunston
·	Barbara Fuller
·	Myles Gordon
·	Arnold J. Levine
·	Dennis Liu
·	Joe McInerney
·	David Micklos
·	Arthur Mitchell
·	Jan Witkowski

·	PRESENTATION
·	Meeting 03-31-01
·	Biology 2001

Georgia Dunston

Georgia Dunston is Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology at Howard University College of Medicine, where she has been on the faculty since 1972. She received the BS degree in Biology from Norfolk State University; MS in Biology from Tuskegee University, and PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Michigan. She conducted postdoctoral work in Tumor Immunology at the National Institutes of Health, in the Laboratory of Immunodiagnosis, National Cancer Institute. In 1985 her interests in the biomedical significance of genomic polymorphisms in African-Americans led her to establish the Human Immunogenetics Laboratory at Howard University. Dr. Dunston has published several articles in professional journals on genetic variation in human major histocompatibility antigens and other genetic markers in African Americans. She has been invited to speak on her research at universities and conferences throughout the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Dunston has served on the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the Genetic Basis of Disease Review Committee for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Review Committee on Human Genome Diversity Project. Her research interests in the biomedical implications of human genome variation is the vanguard of current efforts at Howard University to build national and international research collaborations focusing on the genetics of diseases common in African Americans and other people of the African Diaspora. This research has also served as the core and foundation for creation of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University, formed in 1998 with Dr. Dunston as Acting Director. The goal of the latter is to bring multicultural perspectives and resources to an understanding of human genome variation and its implications for human health.

Barbara Fuller

Barbara Fuller, J.D., R.H.I.A., is Acting Branch Chief for Policy, Education and Outreach at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Her major responsibilities include initiatives regarding genetic discrimination in health insurance and the workplace and the privacy of genetic information. She received her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Maryland. In addition to her legal background, she is a Registered Health Information Administrator and is President of the American Health Information Management Association. She has worked in a variety of health care settings, including hospitals and HMO’s.

Myles Gordon

Myles Gordon is Vice President for Education at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In that position, he is responsible for an ambitious educational agenda within the Museum, encompassing a broad range of educational and pedagogical goals: to engage the Museum’s visitors in the excitement of scientific and cultural discovery; to promote student learning and the professional development of teachers in the New York City public schools; to enhance the Museum’s capacity to serve as an educational and cultural resource for the families and communities of the metropolitan New York area; and to create a continuing relationship between the Museum and its audiences that extends the educational experience beyond the scope of a single visit. A major focus of Gordon’s work has been the creation of the AMNH National Center for Science Literacy, Education and Technology, a Museum-wide initiative to capture the Museum’s scientific resources – its research, collections, and exhibition, and make them available to families, schools, and communities through materials and programs. Prior to joining the museum in 1995, Gordon was Senior Vice President of Education Development Center in Newton, MA where he was responsible for all work in science, math, and technology and led projects in curriculum development, professional development of teachers, instructional use of technology, and systemic reform.

Arnold J. Levine

Arnold J. Levine, a leading authority on the molecular basis of cancer, became the eighth president of The Rockefeller University in December, 1998. Much of Dr. Levine’s research focuses on the tumor suppressor gene called p53 and on its protein product, which he discovered in 1979. When p53 does not function properly, it fails to control cell division and acquires dangerous traits that add to the malignancy of a tumor. Disruption of p53’s normal function is associated within an estimated 60 percent of human cancers. The p53 gene and protein, now studied in laboratories around the world, are helping to fuel the design of a new generation of cancer therapies.

Prior to The Rockefeller University, Dr. Levine was at Princeton University where he was the Harry C. Weiss Professor in the Life Sciences. From 1984 to 1996, he also presided over a major expansion of Princeton’s life sciences program as chairman of the department of molecular biology. In addition, Dr. Levine has helped shape United States science priorities as chairman of an influential 1996 review panel on federal AIDS research funding.

Born in Brooklyn, Dr. Levine received a B.A. from Harpur College, SUNY, in 1961 and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, he joined Princeton in 1968 as an assistant professor and became a professor of biochemistry in 1976. In 1979, Dr. Levine moved to the SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine to chair the department of microbiology. He returned to Princeton in 1984.

Dr. Levine has served on the scientific and medical advisory boards of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Whitehead Institute, Basel Biozentrum in Switzerland, Mount Sinai Research Institute in Toronto, the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Center, the New Jersey Biotechnology Institute, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Cleveland Clinic, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, among others. He is also a former trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Dr. Levine was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and to its Institute of Medicine in 1995. Among his awards are the 1993 Katharine Berkan Judd Award from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the 1994 Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguisehd Achievement in Cancer Research, and the First Strang Award of the Strang Cancer Prevention Center, also in 1994. In 1998 he received the Paul Erlich and Ludwig Darmstaeder Prize, the Bertner Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, and the Eli Lilly’s Clowes Award. Dr. Levine received the Keio Medical Science Prize in 2000. In 2001, he became the first recipient of the Albany Medical Center Award in Biomedical Research. Dr. Levine is the author of the book Viruses, published in 1992 by Scientific American Library.

Dennis Liu

Dennis Liu is Senior Program Officer for Public Science Education Programs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also the Director of a multimedia educational development group at HHMI, publishing a website called BioInteractive.org. This website presents videos, animations, interactive demonstrations, virtual labs, and text materials on modern biomedical science to a general audience, especially high school students and teachers. Prior to coming to HHMI, Dr. Liu developed educational software for science and health with Videodiscovery and Microsoft, producing a major curriculum project on Genetics and Bioethics (Videodiscovery). Dr. Liu has an undergraduate degree in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin, a doctorate in Biology from the University of Oregon, and was Affiliate Professor of Genetics at the University of Washington. His areas of research include developmental neurobiology and genetics working with both the zebrafish and C.elegans model systems.

Joe McInerney

Joe McInerney, director of the Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, holds a master’s degree in genetic counseling from SUNY Stony Brook. He joined the Coalition on 1 September 2000. Prior to that, McInerney was director of the Foundation for Genetic Education and Counseling and spent 22 years on the staff of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), where he was director from 1985 to 1999. He was a member of the information and education committee of the American Society of Human Genetics from 1988-1999 and is a member of the editorial boards of the Quarterly Review of Biology and Community Genetics (The Netherlands).

McInerney currently is principal investigator on a project to develop an interactive CD-ROM on psychiatric genetics, for distribution to all members of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. He directed the development of the BSCS programs Immunology and Human Health; Basic Genetics: A Human Approach (2nd and 3rd editions); Advances in Genetic Technology; Evolution: Inquiries into Biology and Earth Science; and Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy, which was distributed free of charge to each of the 50,000 high school biology teachers in the United States. He also directed development of three other instructional modules on the Human Genome Project, all of which have been distributed nationwide for free. He was principal investigator on projects to develop five interactive CD-ROMS (genetics and cancer; human genetic variation, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases; systematics and taxonomy, and developmental biology) and co-principal investigator for development of a module on the RNA world for undergraduate biology.

McInerney is a former president of the 8,000 member National Association of Biology Teachers, and in 1989 was awarded liftime membership in that organization. In 1996, he was elected a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the Human Genome Project’s working group on ethical, legal, and social implication (ELSI) of human genome research and was a member of the committee that developed the new NIH/DOE five-year plan for the ELSI program. McInerney is a member of the Initial Review Group, ELSI Subcommittee, for the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). He also is chairman of the policy committee for the NHGRI-sponsored organization Genetics Resources on the Web. McInerney also was a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ ad hoc committee on evolution and creationism, which produced two publications on the evolution/creation issue. He has published more than 80 articles, reviews, and chapters in the scientific and science-education literature.

David Micklos

David Micklos is founder and director of the DNA Learning Center, a science museum that provides lab instruction to 21,000 precollege students per year. The nationwide training program he began in 1985 and the DNA Science text he coauthored have introduced thousands of high school and college faculty to laboratory methods in molecular biology. In the last several years, he has focused on developing lab and Internet resources to allow students to use their own DNA polymorphisms as an entrée to studying human evolution, available online at the Genetic Origins WWW site. He is editor of three other Internet sites: Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement, which allows users to explore primary materials gathered from major research archives, DNA from the Beginning, an animated “text” on genetics, and Your Genes/Your Health, a multimedia site on genetic disorders. All four sites can be reached from the DNALC home page, http://vector.cshl.org/dnalc/. In 1990, Dr. Micklos received the Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Higher Education.

Arthur Mitchell

Arthur Mitchell is the Science Standards and Education Coordinator for the New Jersey State Department of Education. In this position his primary duty is the implementation of the Core Curriculum Content Standards in science. He provides training and technical assistance to teachers, supervisors, and other education personnel who focus on science. He also advises many of the science-based organizations within the state in order to ensure their connection to the overall mission of the Department of Education.

In addition to his formal job duties, Mr. Mitchell sits on the Advisory Board for the New Jersey Statewide Systemic Initiative in Math, Science, and Technology. He has traveled across the country as an evaluator for the National Science Foundation and has recently completed a web-based materials evaluation project with NASA and the Council of State Science Supervisors. Currently he is serving on the steering committee for the National Science Teachers Association 2003 National Convention.

Before joining the Department of Education, he was a classroom teacher in both a Pennsylvania suburban district and an urban New Jersey district. In his years in the classroom, he taught Biology (general, advanced, AP, & special needs) and applied science with an environmental emphasis for at-risk students. He was also the special needs resource person for the regular education faculty. Mr. Mitchell was involved in teacher training, curriculum writing, and school-based planning. He also directed various science enrichment programs and science competitions.

He holds a B.S. in Microbiology from Howard University, an M.Ed. in Science Education from Temple University and he is currently a doctoral candidate in Urban Education at Temple University and is a West ED fellow in their Mathematics and Science Leadership Institute.

Jan Witkowski