Cherie Bornhorst
Cherie graduated with a B.S. in Natural Sciences with a minor in Physics Education from Colorado State University. After graduation, she spent 10 years teaching high school Physics in urban and suburban schools in Minnesota and Colorado. She's served as the CO/WY American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) President and started the Colorado Quarknet Center, which focuses on helping current high school teachers develop their skills and bring real research into the high school classroom setting.
Cherie is also the long-time organizer of the Denver Area Physics Teacher Meetings, where she regularly brought together area Physics teachers to collaborate, share ideas and best practices. She currently works for the Little Shop of Physics, an informal science outreach program at CSU, sharing her love of science with K-12 students and working with area teachers to support science education in the local schools. Cherie feels very fortunate to be a part of the MNSE program and work with educators from around the globe who are also interested in continued learning and improvement of their practice.
Cherie Bornhorst teaches NSCI 619A and NSCI 619B.
Sean Bryan
Sean Bryan has a strong interest in geoscience education and geoscience literacy. His research background is in paleoclimatology and paleoceanography, using geologic archives to understand climate and oceanographic variability prior to the instrumental record. The geological record of climate provides important context for recent climate change and benchmarks for the evaluation of climate models used to predict climate in the future. His work towards this goal involves reconstructing climate and ocean conditions using the stable isotope, trace and minor element, and radiocarbon geochemistry of foraminifera, collected from marine sediment cores, and corals. These geochemical proxies provide information about seawater temperatures, seawater chemistry, ocean circulation and carbon cycling at the time that the foraminifera or corals lived.
Sean Bryan teaches NSCI 670.
Raymond Chard
Raymond Chard graduated from Colorado State University with a B.S. degree in natural science and a minor in chemistry education. He then completed the Master of Natural Sciences Education program in 2013. He conducted his research experience with Dr. Alan Van Orden, developing spectroscopy lab exercises for science educators that are now part of the NSCI 630 course.
Post-graduation, Raymond Chard worked with several education startup companies focused primarily in online education. In his time outside the business world, he has taught at the secondary and collegiate level, with courses spanning earth system science, environmental science, and chemistry. Raymond joined the M.N.S.E. faculty in 2016. He feels fortunate to have the opportunity to do what he loves — help other educators along their journey to professional excellence.
Raymond Chard teaches NSCI 620 and NSCI 630 with Dr. Van Orden.
Dr. Martin Gelfand
Dr. Gelfand received a Ph.D. from Cornell University and held postdoctoral research positions at University of California, Los Angeles and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign before joining the Physics department at
Colorado State University. His research area is theoretical and
computational condensed-matter physics. Some examples of the diverse problems he has contributed to include magnetic flux structures in thin-film superconductors, model calculations for quantum spin systems, and electronic properties of alkali fullerides.
Dr. Gelfand has a long-standing interest in the ideas and innovative teaching methods coming out of the physics education research community and has served on the American Physical Society Committee on Education. He is delighted to have an opportunity to contribute directly to the professional development of science educators.
Dr. Gelfand teaches NSCI 619A and NSCI 619B.
Dr. Terry Gray
Dr. Gray received his B.S. in molecular biology from Purdue University and his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Oregon. He has been a biology, chemistry, and biochemistry instructor/professor at Calvin College, Colorado State University, and Front Range Community College. He was also a staff scientist in the Chemistry Department at Colorado State University where he wore many hats: IT support, network and system administration, instructional computing, and computational chemist.
Dr. Gray has conducted research in the areas of protein structure, stability, and folding at the University of Oregon, Calvin College, and Texas A&M University. Energy is an interest being spurred on by teaching the chemistry course for non-science majors at Colorado State University, where about a third of the course is devoted to energy and environment related topics. This interest has resulted in two ebooks with co-author Anthony K. Rappé: Molecules of Life with a Chemistry Bootcamp (2016) and Energy: What the World Needs Now (2013-2016). He is also interested in the intersection of religion and science and was a contributor to Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (2003, Eerdmans). Dr Gray has a long-standing involvement with the American Scientific Affiliation.
Dr. Gray teaches NSCI 640.
Dr. Dale Lockwood
Dr. Lockwood received his Ph.D. from the University of California Davis and held a postdoctoral position with the Program for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Ecology, and Statistics at Colorado State University and the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in evolution, ecology, population genetics, general biology, mathematical biology, global environmental sustainability, and various mathematics and computer science subjects.
Dr. Lockwood's research areas are diverse with work in the dispersal of marine species, the population dynamics of rangeland grasshoppers, the ecological genetics of wild relatives of crop species, and the philosophy of ecology. He is active in advising policy makers on a range of scientific issues and is a coach for middle school science competitions.
Dr. Lockwood teaches NSCI 660.
Dr. Donald Mykles
Dr. Mykles received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and is the director of the M.N.S.E. program. His research concerns the regulation of molting and limb regeneration in crabs and lobsters, including signaling mechanisms in the molting gland, phenotypic changes in skeletal muscle during lobster development, and proteolytic mechanisms mediating molt-induced claw muscle atrophy. Biochemical, immunocytochemical, and molecular biological methods are used.
He also leads the CSU Crab Lab—a dynamic group of postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the control of molting and limb regeneration in crabs and lobsters.
Dr. Mykles teaches NSCI 612, NSCI 650, NSCI 695, and NSCI 698.
Dr. Justin Reeves
Dr. Reeves received a Ph.D. in ecology from Kent State University. His research has spanned a range of topics including insect ecology, invasive plant control, rangeland ecology, and agriculture, all with a recent focus on climate change. Currently in the Department of Agricultural Biology, Dr. Reeves has also taught for the University Honors Program and the Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology program at CSU. Ecological education (at all levels) is seen by Dr. Reeves as one of the keys to solving the myriad of environmental problems the world faces, so he is excited to have the opportunity to be a part of the M.N.S.E. program.
Dr. Reeves teaches NSCI 665.
Dr. Alan Van Orden
Professor Van Orden was born in Champaigne, Illinois and raised in Pocatello, Idaho. After graduating from high school in 1984, he attended Idaho State University for one year and then transferred to Brigham Young University, where he received a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1990. He attended graduate school in the chemistry department at the University of California-Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1996. This was followed by a three-year stint as a postdoctoral researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
In 1999, Professor Van Orden joined the Chemistry faculty at Colorado State University where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in physical, analytical, and general chemistry. He also supervises a group of student research scientists who specialize in applying the techniques of physical and analytical chemistry to the study of biological molecules and nanometer-sized semiconductor particles. Professor Van Orden and his research group have published over thirty manuscripts in the scientific literature.
Dr. Van Orden teaches NSCI 620 and NSCI 630.
One of the best ways to learn about science is through experimentation and exploration, and our science lab kits give you the opportunity to do just that. These kits contain materials to complement what you learn in your courses, and bring hands-on learning to you at a distance. Experiment with a camera obscura, energy flow, chemical reactions, and more from your own home, then incorporate these activities in your K-12 classroom.
