Introducing the 2018 Parents and Educators Session Panelists!
As part of our Parents and Educators session this year, we'll be having a panel discussion with some amazing women! Here's a little bit about them:
DeeDee Wright is currently a 2nd year PhD student in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at Colorado State University and is a student in the Biology Department. Her area of research focuses on K-12 science educators and their persistence in the education workforce. Previously DeeDee taught middle and high school science for 18 years where she was able to explode hydrogen balloons and keep earthworms. Additionally, she supported K-12 science teachers district wide in Poudre School District for 6 years as the Science Curriculum Facilitator. She holds a BA in Biology and a MEd. in Adult Education. When not working with teachers, DeeDee can be found attempting to grow potatoes and asparagus at Mulberry Community Garden.
Growing up, Dani Hunter had a natural curiosity for the world around her that was fostered by parents who were chemists. In college she studied biology with an interest in ecology and the environment, doing research on an endangered species of giant salamander and in STEM education. Since starting graduate school, her research interests have shifted. Now she is more interested in studying other people's natural curiosity for the world around them. Her research in the field of citizen science seeks to understand how different people work together to carry out a citizen science project.
Dr. Becky Bolinger received her B.S. in meteorology from Metro State University of Denver, M.S. in meteorology from Florida State University, and her Ph.D. in atmospheric science from Colorado State University. She is now the Assistant State Climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center (within CSU’s department of Atmospheric Science). Her research interests are focused on Colorado’s climate variability, climate extremes, and drought. She spends her spare time with her husband and daughter, hiking, cycling, running, and enjoying Colorado’s beautiful outdoors.
Gretchen Kroh is a third year PhD candidate interested in plant nutrition with an eye towards global human health. She first became interested in this research during her undergraduate internship (and subsequent research technician position) in plant physiology at the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center. There, she was introduced to the field of plant nutrition and its role in sustaining the human population, especially in developing-world countries. As a PhD candidate and NSF fellow in the Pilon Lab at CSU her passion for plant nutrition has grown as she has been studying the mechanisms of how plants respond to iron deficiency.
Maybellene Gamboa is a PhD candidate broadly interested in understanding how populations are adapted to the environment and aims to use this knowledge to inform conservation management. Specifically, her research merges conservation genomics, animal physiology, evolution, and ecology to study adaptation in California Channel Island song sparrows along a climate gradient. Ultimately, this research will assist in the identification of a source population of Channel Island song sparrows for reintroduction to an island where this species of special concern has gone locally-extinct. When she’s not conducting research, Maybellene enjoys riding her motorcycle, hiking with her dogs, and watching movies.
