Daniel Edelson, PhD

Director, Principal Investigator

FieldScope is Daniel Edelson’s (he/him/his) brainchild. He conceived of it as a way to bring environmental data collection and analysis into 6-12 classrooms as a faculty member at Northwestern University and brought it with him to the National Geographic Society in 2007 when he became the Vice President for Education there. At National Geographic, FieldScope was first used in an initiative to allow K-12 students to analyze water quality data in the Chesapeake watershed from Virginia to New York, and the platform went on to host multiple networked field studies. After Edelson became the Executive Director of BSCS Science Learning–a nonprofit education organization–in 2015, BSCS purchased FieldScope from National Geographic and has brought it to an even wider audience of citizen science, community science, and educational projects.

Daniel Edelson is the executive director of BSCS Science Learning, a nonprofit organization committed to transformation of science learning through research-driven innovation. He is a curriculum and software developer, educational researcher, and advocate for education reform. In his work, he draws on current research to develop products and programs that address the challenges of implementing effective teaching and learning in real-world settings. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Engineering Sciences from Yale University.

Jessica Bean, PhD

Director of Outreach and Science

jrbean@berkeley.edu

Jessica Bean, PhD, joined the FieldScope team in 2022 as the Director of Outreach and Science. She facilitates project recruitment, coordinates project support, and partners with projects across the country to engage communities in collecting and making sense of data in both informal and formal learning environments.

Dr. Bean is a scientist and educator at the Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley. Jessica is also the leader of the Understanding Global Change Project, designing tools for learning about Earth as a dynamic, interconnected system. She partners with K-12 educators to develop and implement new instructional units, professional development programs, and online tools for learning about the nature and process of science and climate change. As a research scientist, she studies the effects of climate and environmental change on marine invertebrates along the California coast. She has taught college and graduate-level biology and Earth science courses, and ran an NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education Program at the University of California, Davis, where she also received her PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Renée De Vaul, MLIS

FieldScope Project Policy Analyst, Manager

rdevaul@berkeley.edu

Renée De Vaul (she/her/hers) joined the FieldScope team in 2018. She tinkers around with the tech side of things, building and updating projects on the platform, as well as liaising with new project owners about their data sets and protocols. She can also be found creating technical manuals and materials to assist project managers and users as they become accustomed to the platform functions and tools.

Renée holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University and a BA in History from Colorado State University. Her love of the natural world began as she grew up hiking, wading, and swimming in the beautiful state of Colorado. She was able to share this appreciation of nature with others while completing an internship with the educational program in Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. Since then, her professional background has included time spent as a writer, editor, coordinator, and in varying tech-related roles. These days, she spends her spare time sharing nature with her husband and their dogs.

Jamie Deutch-Noll, MIT

Science Educator

Jamie (she/her/hers) works as a curriculum developer for Fieldscope’s Invitations to Inquiry and other formal and informal education materials based on the Fieldscope platform.

Jamie Deutch Noll is a Science Educator at BSCS Science Learning, working across professional learning, research, and instructional materials development. Prior to her current position, Jamie worked as a curriculum development specialist at the University of Colorado-Boulder and Northwestern University, as part of iHUB and Next Generation Science Storylines. Jamie has led many development teams in the OpenSciEd Developers Consortium to design storyline-based elementary, middle, and high school NGSS units. Jamie has and continues to lead NGSS professional development workshops across the country. Before leaving the classroom, Jamie taught high school biology, AVID, and middle school science, as a National Board Certified Teacher. Jamie earned her BS in Biology and Psychology from Dickinson College and her MiT in Secondary Science Education from the University of Washington. Jamie’s first forays into teaching were as a conservation corps leader, adventure trip guide, and summer camp counselor, through organizations such as the SCA, YMCA, and local environmental education schools.

Eric Carroll, BA

Operations Coordinator

Eric Carroll (he/him/his) joined the FieldScope team in 2023. As an operations coordinator, he keeps things running smoothly, coordinating licenses and payments, testing platform features, collecting monthly analytics, and making sure conferences have everything they need. Think of him as FieldScope’s ground control, ensuring every launch and landing goes off without a hitch.

Eric earned a BA in Communication with a minor in Digital Filmmaking and Media Arts from the University of Colorado. He grew up in Colorado and enjoys spending time backpacking and camping with his wife and three children whenever possible. His fascination with the natural world started early, hunting for fossils with his father, a hobby he now enjoys sharing with his own children along the Arkansas River. Before joining BSCS, Eric worked as a phlebotomist and phlebotomy trainer in Colorado Springs. A lifelong film enthusiast, he has directed a short film and enjoys writing screenplays in his spare time.

Catherine Nguyen, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar

Dr. Catherine Nguyen (she/her/hers) is a postdoctoral scholar in Participatory Science Outreach and Education at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology. With the Fieldscope team and collaborators, she recruits new projects to the platform, leads the testing of the platform, and co-develops data literacy teaching and learning materials.

Catherine is a 1st-generation, Vietnamese American biologist with a lifelong love for the natural world and science communication. She received her bachelors in Animal Biology from UC Davis in 2017, followed by her doctoral degree in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology from UC Riverside in 2023. Her research interests include behavioral ecology, conservation biology, and informal education. Beyond research, Catherine leads outreach projects that connect concepts in science to the public across several media, including art, podcasts, and exhibit design.

Sean O’Connor, MA

Citizen Science Program Manager, Emeritus

From 2018-2022, Sean (he/him/his) managed the development and re-design of FieldScope, BSCS’s online tool for citizen science, including the technology development and growth of the partner community. He also worked with a team to design the Invitations to Inquiry classroom resources that use real-world cit sci data in science learning. He previously worked at the National Graphic Society (NGS) for over a decade in citizen science and educational mapping technology, including as a Program Manager for FieldScope from 2011-2015. Some of his earliest work at NGS was designing and delivering professional development to Chesapeake Bay-area educators using FieldScope in 2008/09.

He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Rose Island Lighthouse & Fort Hamilton Trust in Newport, RI where he lives with his husband and serves on the board of the Newport Pride organization they founded together. He holds degrees in Communication, Culture, and Technology (Georgetown University – 2009), and Physical Geography (University of California, Santa Barbara – 2005).