Harold Asturias is Director of the Center for Mathematics Excellence and Equity at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley. Earlier, he was Deputy Director of Mathematics and Science Professional Development in the UC Office of the President. He provided oversight to the English Language Development Professional Development Institutes and the CA Subject Matter Projects. He was also Director of the New Standards Portfolio Assessment Project and the Mathematics Unit for New Standards. He led the development team of experts and over a thousand teachers nationwide to the successful production of two assessment systems: the New Standards Portfolio and the Reference Examination; was part of the team that produced the “New Standards Performance Standards”, "Building Bridges: Networking and Planning for the Future of Science Education"; and was one of the writers for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics “Assessment Standards for School Mathematics”.

He has extensive experience providing professional development the standards and assessment in math for teachers. Recently he has focused on designing and implementing professional development for K-12 California math teachers who teach English Language Learners.

(MD, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala; Elementary School Teaching credentials, UCLA)

Maggie Daley is First Lady of the City of Chicago and one of the city's leading advocates for children and youth.  She is Chair of After School Matters, whose goal is to engage Chicago’s teens in purposeful and meaningful activities after-school and in the summer. Starting in 1991 with 220 teens in the gallery37 summer program, it has grown to include over 28,000 high schoolers this academic year.  This increase is a result of an active and resourceful board of civic and corporate leaders; partnering with community-based organizations, non-profit groups, the Chicago Public Schools, Parks and Libraries.

Dr. Lisa Egbuonu-Davis is a senior executive with extensive experience in public health, academic and pharmaceutical sectors.  As a Pfizer sponsored visiting faculty member at Spelman College, she taught undergraduates about health disparities, contributed to a women’s health initiative to reduce health disparities and piloted a peer to peer program in which undergraduate science students mentored middle school students. As Vice President, Pfizer US Medical Operations, she oversaw a staff of over 600 medical professionals and directed clinical, outcomes and economic research for marketed and late stage pharmaceutical products and services.  As Vice President, Pfizer Global Outcomes Research and Medical Services she led a multinational health economic and outcomes research function which documented the economic and clinical value of global pharmaceutical products from early product development throughout the product lifecycle.  Dr. Egbuonu-Davis is currently engaged in programs to reduce health and educational disparities faced by minority and disadvantaged youth. She has served on the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees and is on the Board of the National Council of Economic Education. Dr. Egbuonu-Davis earned a B.S. in Biology at M.I.T., an MBA in health care management from Wharton; she earned M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Johns Hopkins and is board certified in pediatrics.

Dr. Alan Friedman is renowned for his innovative and creative leadership, and his advocacy and work on behalf of informal science education. From 1984 to 2006, Friedman was the Director and CEO of the New York Hall of Science. Friedman has received many national and international awards including being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the New York Academy of Sciences. The AAAS also recognized Friedman with its Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology for 1996–97. He received the ASTC Fellow Award in 2003, and in 2006 the American Association of Museums (AAM) named him to its Centennial Honor Roll. He is Immediate Past President of the Visitor Studies Association Board of Directors and a trustee of the Noyce Foundation.

In 2006, Friedman, now a consultant in museum development and science communication, was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent, bipartisan group that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” Alan Friedman is a consultant in the areas of museum development and science communication. He has consulted for over sixty institutions around the world. He is a trained physicist and co-author of the book, Einstein as Myth and Muse.

To watch an interview with Dr. Friedman visit: http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/globalgroove/awards.html

Lucy N. Friedman is president of The After-School Corporation (TASC), a not-for-profit organization established to enhance the quality and availability of in-school after-school programs. TASC’s goal is to promote universal after-school programming as a public responsibility throughout the US.

Prior to joining TASC, Dr. Friedman was the founder and Executive Director of Victim Services (now: Safe Horizon) for 20 years, the leading and largest national crime victim assistance and advocacy organization. In 1989, she led a study group for Mayor David Dinkins, which recommended the creation of beacon programs in NYC. She serves on the boards of Afterschool Alliance, Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, Center for Family Life Policy, New Destiny Housing Corporation, and Bryn Mawr College.

(Ph.D., Columbia University)

Kolb is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.  He was the recipient of the 2003 Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the 1993 Quantrell Prize for teaching excellence at the University of Chicago.  His book for the general public, Blind Watchers of the Sky, received the 1996 Emme Award of the American Aeronautical Society.

The field of Rocky's research is the application of elementary-particle physics to the very early Universe. In addition to over 200 scientific papers, he is a co-author of The Early Universe, the standard textbook on particle physics and cosmology.

He has traveled the world, if not yet the Universe, giving scientific and public lectures. In addition to occasional lectures at Chicago's Adler Planetarium, Rocky has been a Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturer with the American Astronomical Society since 1984. In recent years he has been selected by the American Physical Society and the International Conference on High-Energy Physics to present public lectures in conjunction with international physics meetings. Rocky presented a special public lecture in Salonika Greece as part of the cultural celebration of that city, and he was selected to address the president of Pakistan as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the country. He has been the Oppenheimer lecturer in Los Alamos, and in Athens (Ohio) and Troy (New York) he presented the Graselli Lecture and the Resnick Lecture. He has also presented public lectures at the Royal Society of London, as well as Vienna, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Valencia, Rome, Toronto, and Vancouver. He is a past Fellow of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.

Rocky has appeared in several television productions, most recently interviewing Stephen Hawking for the Discovery Channel. He can also be seen in the IMAX film The Cosmic Voyage, released in the summer of 1996.

Gabrielle Lyon, Cofounder and Executive Director, Project Exploration, combines social justice activism with a passion for informal science education. She was a Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center and directed the School Change Institute at the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lyon has participated in eight international expeditions to Africa, China, and South America, and, in 1995, discovered the predatory dinosaur Deltadromeus.

In 1999 Lyon cofounded Project Exploration, a Chicago-based science education organization dedicated to making science accessible to the public, especially minority youth and girls, through personalized experiences with science and scientists. Project Exploration creates youth development programs, services for schools and teachers, and public programs including a free access website and traveling exhibits.

Lyon established Project Exploration’s science education youth development model, designed to get minority youth and girls interested in science, keep them interested in science and along the way equip them with what they need to graduate high school, attend college, and consider science as a career option. Project Exploration programs target Chicago Public School students who are low and middle achievers; eighty-five percent of our students come from low-income families. As of Spring 2008,

• 96% have graduated high school rate,
• 61% are enrolled in college
• 43% of girls (34% of students overall) are pursuing science as a major in college.

Lyon’s honors include representing the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, addressing the United Nations Subcommittee on Human Rights on “The Prevention of Racism and the Protection of Minorities” in 1995; and being recognized as and one of the Community Renewal Society’s “35 Under 35” in 2007. Lyon received her BA and MA in History from the University of Chicago and is pursing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Diane Miller is the Senior Vice President of School and Community Programs and Partnerships at the Saint Louis Science Center.  Her overall responsibilities include initiating, developing, coordinating, and implementing STEM programs and collaborative projects with schools community-based organizations, underserved audiences, interns, and youth.  Working with schools and community-based organizations, she is responsible to develop strategies that increase the involvement of audiences not usually reached by the Saint Louis Science Center.

Miller was the project director and program developer for two YouthALIVE! grants, one for the California Science Center (formerly the California Museum of Science and Industry) and one for the Saint Louis Science Center.  She was a member of the YouthALIVE! steering committee and responsible for co-planning and co-facilitating national network meeting.  Currently she is PI on two NSF grants and Co-PI on two additional NSF grants.  A main focus of her job is to design and management of programs that utilize the environment and galleries of the Saint Louis Science Center, and development of comprehensive inviting curriculum that nurtures and interest in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Miller holds a BA in English from the California State University at Chico and is currently pursing a Masters in Museum Studies at the University of Missouri - St Louis.

Jane Quinn is a social worker and youth worker with more than 35 years experience, including direct service with children and families, program development, fundraising, grantmaking, research and advocacy. She currently serves as the Assistant Executive Director for Community Schools at The Children’s Aid Society (CAS), where she leads and oversees local and national work to forge effective long-term partnerships between public schools and other community resources. Jane came to CAS from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds, where she served as Program Director for seven years. Prior to that, she directed a national study of community-based youth organizations for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which resulted in the publication of a book entitled A Matter of Time: Risk and Opportunity in the Nonschool Hours. Together with Joy Dryfoos, Jane recently co-edited a book entitled Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2005.

Paul Sereno, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Chicago, an Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, and cofounder and President of Project Exploration, Dr. Paul Sereno is at the forefront of evolutionary biology and paleontology. He leads expeditions in far-flung places such as China's Gobi region, the Andes foothills in Argentina, and Africa’s Sahara Desert.

Having discovered dinosaurs on five continents, Sereno has been called a modern-day Indiana Jones. He has earned the Chicago Tribune's Teacher of the Year Award (1996) and the Boston Museum of Science's Walker Prize for extraordinary contributions in paleontology (1997). Esquire magazine named him one of the hundred "Best People in the World," and People Weekly deemed him one of its "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1997.

Paul has a lifelong commitment to inspiring students with the wonders of science, via youth programs, dynamic presentations and innovative exhibits.

Her column has appeared in the Sun-Times since 2001. In 2006 she launched a new column, “Droppin’ a Dime,” for In These Times.  She is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio. She previously wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune.

Washington brings more than two decades of diverse experiences in print and broadcast journalism, urban affairs and social justice issues. From 1990 to 2001, Washington edited The Chicago Reporter, a nationally recognized investigative monthly specializing in racial issues and urban affairs.

In 1985 Washington was appointed deputy press secretary to Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor.  From 1987 to 1990 she was a producer for the investigative unit at CBS-2/Chicago. In 1990 Washington returned to The Chicago Reporter and served as editor and publisher from 1994 through 2001.  She has written for the Chicago Tribune, specializing in issues of race, poverty and urban affairs. She was appointed to the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Chair at DePaul in June 2003.

Washington earned her Bachelor's and Master's in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she has also taught and lectured.

She has been honored with more than two dozen local and national awards for her work, including two Chicago Emmys, the Peter Lisagor Award, the Studs Terkel Award for Community Journalism and the Ohio State Award for broadcast journalism. She has also received the Racial Justice Award from the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago is a founding inductee to the Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement and the 2002 Northwestern University Alumnae Award. In 1999 The Chicago Community Trust awarded her a Community Service Fellowship, for “exemplary service, commitment and leadership in individuals from the nonprofit sector.”

Newsweek magazine named Washington one of the nation’s “100 People to Watch” in the 21st Century.  Newsweek said: “her style of investigative journalism has made (the Reporter) a powerful and award-winning voice.”

She is a member of the Chicago and national associations of black journalists and serves as board secretary of The Field Museum. She chairs of the boards of The Woods Fund of Chicago and the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. She also serves on the board of The Donors Forum of Chicago.

Washington has been widely featured in reports and programs on politics and racial and urban issues in the national media, including Time and Newsweek magazines, The New York Times, NBC Nightly News and The Lehrer News Hour. She speaks frequently to local and national audiences.