Sidney Wolff received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and in 1967 joined the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii—before ground was broken for the first telescope on Mauna Kea. In 1984, she was named Director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, and became Director of the National Optical Observatories in 1987. She also served as the first Director of the international Gemini Project, which has just completed two state-of-the-art 8-m telescopes, and as President of both the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Astronomical Society. Since stepping down as Director of NOAO in February 2001, she has been focusing on research on pre-main-sequence stars, the initial phases of the conceptual design of a telescope that would survey the whole sky every week or so, and the launch of a new journal—The Astronomy Education Review.

Andrew Fraknoi is the chair of the astronomy program at Foothill College (near San Francisco) and an educational consultant at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), where he served as executive director for 14 years. At the ASP, he founded and directed Project ASTRO, which links volunteer astronomers with fourth- to ninth-grade teachers in sites around the country, and Family ASTRO, which provides training and activities to encourage families to enjoy astronomy together. Fraknoi has organized five “Cosmos in the Classroom” symposia on teaching introductory astronomy to college non-science majors, and 20 “Universe in the Classroom” workshops on teaching astronomy in Grades 3-12. He is coauthor of two college textbooks, Voyages through the Universe and Abell’s Exploration of the Universe, and two collections of astronomy activities and resources, called The Universe at Your Fingertips. For five years, he was coauthor of a nationally syndicated newspaper column on astronomy, and he appears regularly on local and national radio, explaining astronomical developments in everyday language. He has received both the Annenberg Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the Klumpke-Roberts Prize of the ASP for his contributions to astronomy education. Asteroid 4859 has been named Asteroid Fraknoi by the International Astronomical Union in recognition of his work in the popularization of astronomy.

Mary Dussault is a science education program manager at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), where she serves as deputy director for the NASA Universe Education Forum. She holds a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Wellesley College and a master’s degree in history of science (focusing on contemporary science and society issues) from Harvard University. Through her exhibition and curriculum development work at the CfA and her previous 17 years at Boston’s Museum of Science, she has researched and developed inquiry-based science learning experiences for a variety of informal education environments, for the classroom, and for teacher professional development programs. While at the Museum of Science, she helped lead a multiyear NSF-funded exhibition and education project, Science Is an Activity. This project transformed the museum’s approach toward developing its exhibits and programs to a model based on visitor research and ongoing formative evaluation.

Recent projects at the CfA have included the national traveling exhibition Cosmic Questions: Our Place in Space and Time (NSF/NASA 2002-2006), a hands-on exhibition that invites visitors to join the human quest to understand the origin and nature of the universe; and the Beyond the Solar System Professional Development Project (NASA/SAO 2006), which recently produced a DVD full of research-based science content and pedagogical resources for teachers, in partnership with the producers of A Private Universe. Mary was the 2006 recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s Education Achievement Award.

Tom Foster is an associate professor of physics at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), where he has taught for six years. In addition to teaching the introductory astronomy course, he has taught a wide range of courses and earned SIUE’s highest teaching award. He takes special pride in teaching those courses intended for future teachers at all educational levels. Tom conducts research in many aspects of science pedagogy, but his specialization is in the development of problem-solving skills, both quantitative and qualitative, in students. He has led numerous workshops in both problem-solving techniques and education research methods for physics and astronomy. Tom is an active member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), for which he has chaired the committees on laboratories and pre-high school concerns. He also serves on the board of directors for the Illinois Science Teacher Association and the Illinois Section of the AAPT.

Dr. Foster earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering physics from The Ohio State University and an master of science in physics from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. In 2000, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in curriculum and instruction; his dissertation made the first longitudinal measurement of problem-solving skill growth.

Mary Kay Hemenway is a Research Associate and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Virginia in 1971. In addition to teaching several undergraduate courses, she served as the Associate Director for the Institute for Science and Mathematics Education in the College of Natural Sciences for three years. She has been the principal investigator on several education projects (from K-12 to undergraduate) with funding from NSF and NASA. She served as Education Officer for the American Astronomical Society for six years, and is currently Secretary for the Board of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Lauren Jones received her PhD from the University of Florida in 2000. Since then, she has taught at several different institutions of higher education, including the University of Arizona, Gettysburg College, and Wabash College. During her teaching career, she worked with the Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research (CAPER) Team and Project CLEA (Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in Astronomy). While Lauren loved teaching, she came to love education research (the scholarship of teaching and learning), and she came to be very passionate about science education. Between teaching and her current position, Lauren served as a consultant for publishing companies, helping to develop educational tools for students studying introductory astronomy. Currently, Lauren is an education consultant for the Ohio Department of Education, where she is serving as a specialist in physics and astronomy.

Dr. Jones earned a bachelor of arts in physics and astronomy from Vassar College, a master of science in physics with specialization in astronomy from Moscow State University, a master of science in physics from the University of Alabama, a master of science in astronomy from the University of Florida, and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Florida, where her dissertation was on the source of far infrared radiation in spiral galaxies.

Robert D. Mathieu has been on the faculty of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1987. He was educated at Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley, after which he became a fellow of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He has received a Presidential Young Investigator award and a Guggenheim Fellowship for his research into the dynamics of star clusters and the formation of binary stars.

He has served as president of the Board of Directors of the WIYN Observatory. While associate director of the National Institute for Science Education, he led the development of the Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide (FLAG) and research-based resources in collaborative learning and teaching with technology, all designed for science, engineering, and mathematics faculty.

He presently chairs the University Committee of UW-Madison and also directs the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL). In addition, he is the principal investigator of an NSF project to upgrade the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument into a robust online tool suitable for evaluation use by individual instructors, entire departments, and developers of new teaching and learning approaches. His research involves the formation and evolution of binary stars and the dynamics of star clusters.

Bruce Partridge has been a professor of astronomy at Haverford College for 36 years. He has taught various flavors of “Astro 101” over 40 times and published dozens of scientific papers with undergraduate coauthors. The latter led to an Award for Research in an Undergraduate Institution from the American Physical Society. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton, then went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. His research interests lie in cosmology and radio astronomy, especially the cosmic microwave background. He is a member of the U.S. team supporting the European Space Agency’s Planck Mission to observe the microwave background with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. He served for six years as the Education Officer for the American Astronomical Society (during the period that AER was born and obtained sponsorship from the AAS). He now serves on the Board of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

John R. Percy (PhD Astronomy 1968 University of Toronto) is a professor of astronomy at the Erindale Campus of the University of Toronto, and is cross-appointed to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education — the education research and teacher education wing of the university. His research interests include variable stars and stellar evolution, and he has published over 200 research papers in these fields. He is also active in science education (especially astronomy) at all levels, throughout the world; his specific interests include effective teaching at the university level, pre-service and in-service teacher education, astronomy in the schools, public science literacy, science centers, international astronomy education and development, and the role of amateurs in astronomy research and education. He has served as president of several organizations, including the International Astronomical Union Commissions on Variable Stars, and on Astronomical Education, and also the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He has served as Honorary President of the Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario, and as Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ontario Science Centre. He has received many honours, including the Distinguished Educator Award of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. In 1999, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Harry Shipman is the Annie Jump Cannon Professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware. His academic degrees are from Harvard and from Caltech. He taught at Yale and at the University of Missouri before coming to Delaware in 1974. He served as Director of Delaware’s Center for Teaching Effectiveness for six years. He has been teaching large science courses to nonmajors ever since the early 1970s and has received the University of Delaware’s excellence in teaching award. His contributions to teaching at the national level have included serving as the American Astronomical Society’s Education Officer for six years, serving as Strand Coordinator for the National Association of Research in Science Teaching. He publishes in diverse education journals including The Physics Teacher, the Journal for Research and Science Teaching, the Journal of College Science Teaching, and Science & Education. He continues to publish in the Astrophysical Journal. He has published four popular books and over one hundred and fifty articles, and has received grants from the NSF, from NASA, and from private foundations bearing the names of John Simon Guggenheim and John M. Templeton. He has had observing access to many NASA facilities including the Hubble Space Telescope.

In another area, he is a competitive figure skater and has won many medals in regional, national, and international competitions, including two gold and two silver medals in the World Recreational Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California in the summer of 1999.

Tim Slater is an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, where he and his graduate students in the astronomy department conduct research on the teaching and learning of astronomy at K-12 and higher education levels. Dr. Slater is the director of the University Science and Mathematics Education Center, and the education and public outreach lead scientist for the Arizona Astrobiology Institute. In addition to teaching large enrollment courses in introductory astronomy, he teaches courses for pre-service and in-service science teachers that focus on the pragmatic aspects of teaching science as inquiry. Through extensive funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA, he and his colleagues pioneered the use of collaborative learning groups in the context of the large-lecture astronomy survey course for nonscience majors, and developed the nationally normed Astronomy Diagnostic Test (ADT), which measures student achievement in “Astro 101” courses. He also has significant experience working in the area of Internet-based science education.

Dr. Slater earned a BS degree in physical science and a BS in secondary science education from Kansas State University, and an MS degree in physics from Clemson University. In 1993, he earned his PhD in Geological Sciences from the University of South Carolina, where his dissertation focused on how middle school teachers integrate the teaching of astronomy into the curriculum.