Students Learn Like Scientists and Engineers

Cary Sneider, EtF Project Director, is a Visiting Scholar at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. He serves as a consultant to two charitable foundations that focus on environmental and STEM education. He was the lead consultant in engineering to the National Research Council for A Framework for K–12 Science Education, and served in a similar role on the writing team for the Next Generation Science Standards.

Dr. Sneider taught science in Maine, Costa Rica, Coalinga California, and the Federated States of Micronesia. He subsequently worked for 28 years at Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Astronomy and Physics Education. He then moved to Boston to become Vice President for Programs at the Museum of Science. In 2011, he was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for “The Nation’s Report Card.” Dr. Sneider earned a bachelor’s degree in Astronomy at Harvard College, and doctoral degree in Science Education at UC Berkeley.

Johanna Bunn is a middle school mathematics teacher at the Arlington Public schools in Arlington, Massachusetts. Dr. Bunn’s teaching experience ranges from sixth grade through the university level and includes serving as on-camera instructor for five books published by Addison Wesley for college level introductory mathematics. She has also conducted professional development sessions on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in more than a dozen states and online. She served on the Technology-Engineering Advisory Council and the Technology-Engineering Assessment Development Committee for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Additionally, she has worked as an author, editor, and content consultant for Kaplan, Houghton-Mifflin, It’s About Time, and Pearson Education. Dr. Bunn earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering, a master’s degree in secondary education, and a doctoral degree in curriculum and teaching from Boston University.

Lee Pulis is a curriculum writer and professional developer. For the past decade he has moderated a teacher support site for over 500 EtF teachers. From 1996 to 2006, he served as Senior Scientist, NSF Principal Investigator, and Project Director on several federal grant and corporate client funded research-based curriculum projects at TERC in Cambridge, MA. Prior to that, he was Assistant Dean of Technical Education and Division Chair at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, MO, Department Co-Chair at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, IA, president of an industrial supply and motor rewinding service, and Environmental Division Supervisor for a major power plant architect-engineering firm. Mr. Pulis earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in Ecology and Systematics from Cornell University.

Mihir K. Ravel is a noted technologist and educator in electronic system design and STEM education. He has been an invited faculty at leading institutions in the U.S. and Asia to collaborate on design-centric learning approaches. He is currently a research faculty at Portland State University’s College of Engineering in Oregon, leading a Lemelson Foundation project on design and invention in high school science curricula. He also continues as a Distinguished Research Scientist at Olin College of Engineering, where he helped develop the Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship program. Prior to his focus on education, Mr. Ravel’s corporate career spanned three decades of leading high-tech R&D organizations.

He served as Vice-President of Technology for National Instruments, a global pioneer in computer-based automation, control, and system design, and as a Corporate Fellow and Director of Strategic Technologies for Tektronix, a global leader in high performance instrumentation and electronic design. Mr. Ravel earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has advanced graduate studies in semiconductors, digital communications, optics, neural networks, and electronic design from various universities.