Biography

 Personal Statement

Biography

Dr. Gregory Jeff Barord is a marine biologist and educator who was fascinated by cephalopods at an early age. Dr. Barord received his B.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University at Galveston and completed his M.Phil. and Ph.D. at City University of New York – Graduate Center. Currently, he is the Marine Biology Instructor at Central Campus, a Conservation Biologist for the Save the Nautilus, and holds a Research Associate affiliation at the American Museum of Natural History. In the classroom, he emphasizes the connection between scientific understanding and environmental stewardship, encouraging students to apply critical thinking to real-world ecological challenges. Much of Dr. Barord’s research has taken him throughout the Indo-Pacific, conducting deep sea surveys of nautilus populations and their habitat leading to positive conservation outcomes. These experiences have shaped his perspective on science, so much so, that now he brings dozens of his current high school students on field research expeditions to Fiji. Dr. Barord serves in several leadership roles, including as an Instructional Leadership Team Member at his school, as a Scientific Adviser for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Aquatic Invertebrate Taxon Advisory Group, and on the international level as a Writing Team Member for the recent United Nations World Ocean Assessment. Outside of formal research and teaching, he is dedicated to sharing science with broader audiences. Whether through public talks, collaborations, or outreach efforts, he strives to make marine biology accessible and inspiring for everyone. 

 Personal Statement

 While the foundations of science are vital, I challenge each of my students to bring their own personalities and interests to marine biology topics and dialogue in our classroom. When discussing current and future environmental problems, we are only going to come up with effective solutions if they are driven by diverse stakeholders sharing unique ideas. I prioritize connecting critical thought to curiosity, so they develop the ability to analyze complex biological systems and conservation issues from different perspectives. By combining engagement, inquiry, and conservation-focused learning, my students are prepared for multiple career paths, whether in the sciences or not, as well as becoming informed and collaborative citizens. 

Biography

Blake Touchet is an educator, researcher, and national leader in science education whose work has advanced evolution education in K–12 classrooms across the United States. A former high school biology teacher in Louisiana, Touchet spent more than a decade teaching science while developing innovative approaches to helping students understand evolution as the unifying framework of biology. His classroom instruction emphasized connecting evolutionary concepts to real-world issues, including human health, biodiversity, genetics, and scientific literacy.

Touchet expanded his impact beyond the classroom through leadership roles with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), where he served as Science Education Specialist. In this position, he worked directly with teachers nationwide, providing professional development, curriculum resources, and instructional support designed to strengthen evolution and climate change education. He also collaborated with educators through the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science and NCSE’s Teacher Ambassador programs, helping teachers confidently address challenging scientific topics in diverse communities.

A respected communicator of science, Touchet has addressed common misconceptions about evolution through workshops, publications, conference presentations, and podcast appearances. His work has focused on helping educators explain the nature of scientific theories, counter misinformation, and engage students in evidence-based reasoning. He has also contributed to the development of instructional materials that use storytelling, scientific literacy, and culturally responsive teaching practices to improve student understanding of evolution.

Through his teaching, scholarship, and national outreach efforts, Blake Touchet has become a prominent advocate for effective evolution education and scientific literacy, empowering both educators and students to engage thoughtfully with the evidence that explains the diversity and interconnectedness of life on Earth.

Personal Statement

My goal as a biology teacher is to help students appreciate the world through the lens of scientific inquiry. I believe that developing scientific literacy so that people can evaluate claims, interpret evidence, and make informed decisions for themselves and their communities is the most critical work that we do as science educators. 

Biography

Across several recent NSF-funded projects, Dr. Ballen and her collaborators examine how representations of scientists influence students’ engagement and how these insights can be used to design learning environments that help students envision themselves as participants in science. Her work has contributed to actionable classroom resources, including Data Nuggets/DataVersify, free activities that support data literacy and bring authentic scientific data into biology classrooms. Dr. Ballen’s research group is highly collaborative and multidisciplinary, bringing together learning scientists, psychologists, data scientists, and disciplinary faculty across science fields and institution types. These collaborations enable the development of tools and ideas that address questions that could not be answered from within a single classroom, institution, or discipline.

 Biography

I founded the DNALC in 1988 as the world’s first science center devoted to public genetics education. The DNALC has since grown to five sites in the New York Metropolitan area, encompassing 45,000 square feet, 16 teaching labs, and four bioinformatics labs. Nineteen additional programs at universities and scientific institutions worldwide have been licensed by or modeled after the DNALC. My career has focused on scaling up lab and computer infrastructure to allow large numbers of students and citizen scientists to inquire about the genetic basis of life. More than 500,000 US students per year use DNALC, curricula, experiments, and extended research projects. The DNALC first implemented footlocker kits and mobile labs to cost-effectively carry DNA experiments around the world and developed the first student experiment in personal DNA sequencing. The DNALC’s methods for DNA barcoding and its DNA Subway 2.0 bioinformatics workflow form one of the most widley used systems for undergraduate student research and citizen science studies of biodiversity. Under an MOU with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the DNALC is popularizing its inexpensive MinION DNA sequencer, which together with DNA Subway 2.0 fulfills the promise of DNA sequence analysis anytime, anyplace, by anyone. 

Personal Statement

 Biography

Personal Statement

Biography

 Biography

I am a Navajo Microbiologist woman teaching science and conducting research with students who I relate to and who relate to me. I am Bitter Water Clan, and I am born for Red Running Into the Water People Clan. I grew up on my family’s ranch in Sanostee, NM, a rural part of the Navajo Reservation.

I am an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico (UNM)-Valencia Campus where I started teaching in Fall of 2020. I discovered my passion for microbiology at Diné College, a community college in Shiprock, NM. To pursue my passion, I earned my B.S. and M.S in Microbiology from Arizona State University and the University of Iowa, respectively.

I am also passionate about mentoring and encouraging the next generation of Native American and Hispanic students, therefore I returned to my home state. I earned my PhD in Biology at UNM where I investigated how bacteria gathered iron from within caves at Carlsbad Caverns National Park (CCNP). Then I enhanced my teaching pedagogy as a UNM-ASERT Postdoctoral fellow where I worked with teaching mentors from local colleges.

Now, I live my passion, which is teaching Biology and Microbiology and bringing research into my courses. My students bring their own perspectives to understanding the research question, Is the overall health of an individual affected by their oral microbial diversity, and they present their findings. In my free time, I enjoy riding my horses, bike riding with my husband, Chris, and camping in the mountains.

Personal Statement

I value that I am relatable to my students and that I am honest in talking about my background. I think it’s important, because it sets the stage for a sense of trust and community at the beginning of the semester.

My teaching philosophy is rooted in knowing that my students leave my classroom trusting themselves, trusting their critical thinking process, and are proactive leaders of their own education. Through the semester, I facilitate active learning strategies that include critical thinking problems, which I believe helps students build trust in their reasoning thereby leading to building confidence in their learning.

I love teaching at the community college level because it gives me an opportunity to understand my students personally. Not only am I guiding them through the required course material, but I am also encouraging them to try their best, holding them accountable to class participation and completing assignments, and reminding them of the expectations that they have of themselves. When students are feeling overwhelmed with balancing coursework, their jobs, and raising their families, my job is to remind them to take it one step at a time and that it’s going to be okay. 

In closing, what brings the most joy to my teacher’s heart is the confidence I see in their thinking and explanation from the first time I meet them to when they are completing my microbiology course. No longer are they worried that a critically thinking problem that we are working on can have more than one answer. I trust that at the end of my courses, my students are confident learners, and they will take charge of their educational and career paths.