COPUS: Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science

Participants in COPUS 1

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.

Roy Caldwell is a professor in the Dept. of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley and Interim 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 Policy Officer with the American Meteorology Association. She recently served as the Associate Director for the National Academies' Space Studies Board and as a Senior Program Officer in the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources for the Committee on Earth Resources working on mining and energy policy issues, as program director for the Petrology and Geochemistry Program in the Division of Earth Sciences at the National Science Foundation, 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 and a B.A. in geology from the University of Northern Iowa, with research in the origin and evolution of lunar rocks and highly reduced igneous meteorites.

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.

Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed magazine and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect. He focuses on issues at the intersection of science and politics, and is author of the bestselling book The Republican War on Science, dubbed "a landmark in contemporary political reporting" by Salon.com and a "well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists" by Scientific American. Among other accolades, Chris was recently named one of Wired magazine's ten "sexiest geeks" of 2005.

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.

Kathy Sullivan was the first American woman to walk in space and is a veteran of three shuttle missions. She left NASA to accept a Presidential appointment as Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where she oversaw programs ranging from climate and global change to satellites and marine biodiversity. Dr. Sullivan has maintained a lifelong commitment to education, which led her to Columbus in 1996 to serve as President and CEO of COSI (Center of Science and Industry), where she is currently Science Advisor. In 2003, she received the esteemed Public Service Award from the National Science Board, to which she was appointed as a member in 2004. She is an AAAS Fellow and a Captain in the US Naval Reserve.

Susan Traiman is Director of Education and Workforce Policy at Business Roundtable. Business Roundtable members are at the forefront of public policy, advocating for a vigorous, dynamic global economy. Prior to this position, Ms. Traiman was Education Policies Studies Director at the National Governors Association (NGA) where she participated in planning the 1989 National Education Summit in Charlottesville, Virginia and the subsequent development of National Education Goals. She served on the staff of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, contributing to the development of its 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. She has a B.A. in American Civilization and M.S. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Marvalee Wake is Past President of AIBS and Professor Emerita in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. She received her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Southern California and her research interests focus on the morphology, development, and reproductive biology in vertebrates with the goal of understanding evolutionary patterns and processes. Marvalee has served as president of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, the International Union of Biological Sciences, and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and as Chair of the AAAS Section on Biological Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences.