Lee Allison was appointed as State Geologist and Director of the Arizona Geological Survey in December, 2005. Prior to that, he served in similar positions in Utah (1989-1999) and Kansas (1999-2004). He served as the governor's Policy Advisor for Science and Energy in Kansas and chaired the Kansas Energy Council, until moving to Arizona. He holds BA, MS, and PhD degrees in geology and has been active in science policy and public policy, especially related to natural resources and geologic hazards. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists awarded him their Public Service Award in 2002 for leadership in a number of controversial or high-profile policy issues.

Barbara Butler retired from the National Science Foundation in 2002. She was a program director in the Informal Science Education (ISE) program and section head of the Science Literacy Section in the Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Science Education. Since retirement she has consulted with a number of informal learning organizations. Barbara graduated from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois; has a masters degree in anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.

Roy Caldwell is a professor in the Dept. of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley and Director of UCMP. He is coPI on the Understanding Evolution website. Though Roy's early research centered on insect migration, now his interests lie in tropical marine invertebrate behavior and ecology. His current research is focused on the behavioral ecology of stomatopod crustaceans, a group of tropical marine predators commonly known as mantis shrimp. Roy received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1969.

Tamara L. Dickinson is the Program Coordinator for the National Data Preservation Program, Informatics, and Laboratories of the U.S. Geological Survey. She recently served as the Associate Director for the National Academies' Space Studies Board, as a Senior Program Officer in the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources for the Committee on Earth Resources, as program director for the Petrology and Geochemistry Program in the Division of Earth Sciences at NSF, and as discipline scientist for the Planetary Materials and Geochemistry Program at NASA Headquarters. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in geology from the University of New Mexico, with research in the origin and evolution of lunar rocks and highly reduced igneous meteorites.

Debra Felix is the Program Officer for pre-college science education initiatives at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Felix earned her undergraduate degree in Biology and Education from Swarthmore College. She subsequently earned MBA and M.Ed. degrees from Columbia University and taught high school Biology, Earth Science and Psychology in New York City. Felix serves on the Board of the National Science Resources Center, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academies. She also volunteers with Adventures in Science, a collaboration of the 4-H and NIH for children aged 8-11.

John "Jack" W. Hess is the Executive Director of the Geological Society of America. He has also served as Executive Director of the Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada, Congressional Science Fellow in the office of Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), past Chair of the Board of the Karst Waters Institute and currently serves on the Boards for the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, the Colorado Society of Association Executives, and the Longs Peak Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the National Speleological Society, and the Cave Research Foundation. He holds a bachelors and doctorate in geology from The Pennsylvania State University.

Judy Kass is the Senior Project Director for the AAAS Public Understanding of Science and Technology Programs. As such, she works to make science more easily accessible for people of different age groups and backgrounds. Ms. Kass has also worked to increase the partnership between science organizations and the communities that surround them, such as Public Science Day, which is held during the AAAS annual meeting and has helped students and their families, to see the impact of science on their everyday lives through. Judy Kass is a graduate of Antioch University in Ohio, and received her Masters of Arts in Education from Howard University in Washington, DC.

David R. Lindberg is the Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology and past Director of the UC Museum of Paleontology (UCMP). His research interests focus on the evolution of select organisms (mostly Mollusca), and the resultant interactions between organisms and their habitats through time. He has done research and field work for more than 15 years along much of the eastern Pacific margin. Additionally he is the PI on three K-12 outreach projects at UCMP, and coPI on the Understanding Evolution website. He received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Abe Parker is Education and Outreach Program Associate at the American Institute of Biological Sciences, where he coordinates all student programs and diversity-related initiatives, in addition to designing and producing educational resources and outreach materials. He has also taken the role of Program Associate for the COPUS National Office. Abe is a graduate of Cornell University, holding both a Bachelor's degree in Natural Resources and a Master's degree in Science Education

Richard T. O'Grady holds degrees in zoology from McGill University, Montreal, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Ph.D., 1987). Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, he worked in scientific publishing. In 1997 he was named Executive Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, a nonprofit scientific organization in Washington DC with programmatic activities in research, education, public policy, publications, meetings, and peer review services to government agencies and other grant-making organizations.

Judy Scotchmoor is the Assistant Director of the UC Museum of Paleontology. She is currently the Project Coordinator of two NSF-funded programs Understanding Evolution and The Paleontology Portal and served as the Project Director for the pilot of the DLESE Teaching Box Project. She is the current Treasurer of the California Science Teachers Association and is editor and co-author of three resource books for teachers, Learning from the Fossil Record, Evolution: Investigating the Evidence, and Dinosaurs: the Science Behind the Stories. Prior to joining UCMP, she was a 7th and 8th grade math and science teacher for 25 years.

Richard K. Stucky is Curator of Paleoecology and Evolution at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1982 from the University of Colorado. He was the Science Director for the award-winning "Prehistoric Journey," an exhibition on the history of life. In 2005, he spearheaded efforts to advocate for science in Colorado which resulted in the formation of the Colorado Science Forum, a group of science leadership within the state. Dr. Stucky was the president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (2000-2002) and his research involves understanding the evolution of natural communities through the past 65 million years and impacts of climate change on species and community evolution.

Colorado Science Forum attendees

Susan Avery, Interim Vice Chancellor for Research & Dean of the Graduate School, University of Colorado Boulder (CU_Boulder)

Denise Brown, Executive Director, Colorado BioScience Association

Jack Burns, Professor, Astronomy and Planetary Science, CU-Boulder

Bridget Coughlin, Deputy Chief Curator & Curator of Health sciences, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Kathryn Flanagan, University of Denver

James Fogleman, Dean, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Denver

Kirk Johnson, Chief Curator and vice President of Research and Collections, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Nigel Middleton, Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, Colorado School of Mines

John Sepich, Past President, Colorado Science Teachers Association

Vic Stenger, Colorado Alliance for Science

Richard Stucky, Curator of Paleoecology & Evolution, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Richard Truly, Admiral, Former Director, retired, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Also in attendance, Clayton and Christine Powers, volunteers, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Support for COPUS workshops by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. EAR-0606600 and EAR-0628790. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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