Our Staff

Speaker:	Glenn Branch
Title:	Deputy Director, NCSE
Education:	M.A., UCLA (Philosophy)
Glenn Branch is Deputy Director of NCSE. Formerly a graduate student in philosophy at UCLA, where he won prizes both for scholarship and teaching, he is conversant with the philosophical debates surrounding creationism and "intelligent design"; he is also a long-time student of pseudo-science. Branch is co-editor, with Eugenie Scott, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.
Suggested Honorarium: $300
Topics:	For the general public:
		Creationism and evolution: historical, political, and/or religious perspectives (as requested)
	For university classes:
		Creationism and the philosophy of science
		Creationism and the philosophy of religion

Speaker:	Barbara Forrest, Ph.D.
Title:	Member, NCSE board of directors
Education:	Ph.D., Tulane University (Philosophy); M.A., Louisiana State University (Philosophy); B.A., English, Southeastern Louisiana University
Barbara Forrest joined NCSE's board of directors in 2004 after ten years of activism and professional scholarship on behalf of public education, especially science education, and civil liberties. Her doctoral dissertation, "Naturalism in Education: A Study of Sidney Hook," examined Hook's philosophy of education, which stressed the teaching of critical inquiry throughout the curriculum. She was an expert witness for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005). Her areas of expertise in the trial were the history and strategy of the intelligent design creationist movement and the development of the creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People. Her service in the Kitzmiller case was an outgrowth of her co-authorship with Paul R. Gross of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press, 2004). The book details the nature of ID creationism and the political tactics that ID advocates at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture are using to advance their "Wedge Strategy." Forrest has also written a personal account of her experience as an expert witness. Her interest in the intelligent design issue stems from her support for public education and the separation of church and state. She is also a member of the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Suggested Honorarium: $2500
Topics:	For the general public, teachers, school boards, and university audiences:
		The nature and strategy of the intelligent design creationist movement
		An expert witness's account of the Dover trial

Speaker:	Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D.
Title:	Faith Project Director, NCSE
Education:	Ph.D., Graduate Theological Union (Science and Religion); M.A. Oxford University (Philosophy and Theology)
Dr. Hess is the Faith Project Director of NCSE, and an adjunct faculty member at Saint Mary's College, Moraga. Researching and teaching in the interdisciplinary field of science and religion for the past two decades, he focuses in his scholarly work on the interaction between science and religion, 1500-1900. In 2002 he was elected a member of the International Society of Science and Religion (ISSR). An engaging speaker, he offers stimulating and thought-provoking lectures and workshops. He addresses religious, philosophical and historical aspects of the controversy surrounding evolution and creation, and can draw out the theological implications of an evolutionary view of the universe. He teaches liberal studies at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California, and serves on the steering committee of the Local Societies Initiative of the Metanexus Institute. He is writing a book on some historical aspects of the intersection between Catholicism and the sciences.
Suggested Honorarium: $500
Topics:	For the general public:
		Creationism and evolution: historical, religious, and philosophical perspectives (as requested)
		"Blundering into blasphemy: From theistic evolution to intelligent design"
		Issues in science and religion: cosmology, evolution, the human person
		History of science-religion interaction
	For scientists, religious scholars, and teachers:
		Teaching science or religion with integrity
		What the Bible does and does not teach
		Myths, meanings, science and truth: A guide to cosmogonic stories

Speaker:	Louise S. Mead, Ph.D.
Title:	Education Project Director, NCSE
Education:	Ph.D. (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology), M.A. (Education), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Louise Mead has been both a high school science teacher and university lecturer. Her research interests include understanding the evolutionary processes that create and maintain biological diversity, specifically, how sexual selection shapes patterns of evolutionary change and influences the evolution of sexual isolation and speciation. Her dissertation and postdoctoral work included studying courtship behavior and pheromone communication in plethodontid salamanders, using quantitative genetic models to simulate speciation, and describing a new species of salamander from northern California. Louise also has a long-standing interest in the nature of science and science as a way of knowing, particularly as compared with indigenous knowledge systems.
Suggested Honorarium: $500
Topics:	For the general public:
		Evolution: history, science, and nature
	For scientists and teachers:
		Evolution and models of sexual selection
		Teaching evolution in a climate of controversy

Speaker:	Eric Meikle, Ph.D.
Title:	Outreach Coordinator, NCSE
Education:	Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (Anthropology)
Dr. Meikle has been Outreach Coordinator at NCSE since 2000. He is a physical anthropologist with a special interest in the fossil record of human and primate evolution. Before coming to NCSE, he was on the staff of the Institute of Human Origins for 11 years, and also taught anthropology at several universities in California and Arizona. He has over 25 years of experience conveying information about human evolution to students, educators, and the general public through courses, lectures, museum exhibits, teaching materials, tours, and a variety of publications. Dr. Meikle was anthropology advisor for the pioneering "Stones and Bones" curriculum development project of the Los Angeles Unified School District circa 1980. He is also especially interested in the history of human evolutionary studies and the nature of antievolutionism.
Suggested Honorarium: $500
Topics:	For the general public and teachers:
		Human evolution and the fossil record
		Reconstructing the human past: how do we know?
		Current antievolutionism in the US
		Evolution and the nature of science

Speaker:	Kevin Padian, Ph.D.
Title:	President, NCSE
Education:	M. Phil., Ph.D., Yale University; B.A., M.A.T., Colgate University
Kevin Padian is president of NCSE’s board of directors and also Professor of Integrative Biology and Curator in the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1980. An international expert on the evolution of vertebrates, particularly dinosaurs and their relatives, his principal interest is in the origin of major adaptive changes. It was on this subject, as well as on phylogenetic relationships, homology, and the nature of science, that he testified in the Dover, Pennsylvania trial on "intelligent design" in 2005. He is the author of over a hundred scientific articles and numerous books. He was one of the authors and editors of the California Science Framework K-12 in 1990, and has served on three panels advising the adoption of textbooks and other instructional materials in science to the state of California. He has received numerous awards and academic honors and appointments, including the Carl Sagan Award for the Popularization of Science, and has served as a Distinguished Lecturer for Sigma Xi and a Visiting Professor at the Collège de France, the Université de Paris, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.
Suggested Honorarium: $2500
Topics:	For teachers, church groups, and the general public:
		What Darwin said (and didn’t say)
		Why intelligent design is bad science – and bad theology
		How dinosaurs grew so big (and so fast)
	For university audiences:
		Please inquire directly.

Speaker:	Andrew J. Petto, Ph.D.
Title:	Member, NCSE board of directors; Editor, Reports of the National Center for Science Education
Education:	Ph.D., University of Massachusetts–Amherst (Bioanthropology); M.A., University of Massachusetts–Amherst (Anthropology); A.B., Middlebury College (Sociology-Anthropology)
Andrew Petto is senior lecturer in anatomy and physiology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He joined NCSE's board of directors in 1995 and serves as editor of the NCSE publications, which were merged into Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 1997. With Laurie R. Godfrey, he is co-editor of Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism — a sequel to Godfrey’s 1983 Scientists Confront Creationism. This book explores the cultural, scientific, philosophical, and educational issues related to anti-evolutionism in the early 21st century. He has been active in promoting evolution in state science education standards in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, working with education agencies to refine state standards on evolution, biological variation, and adaptation. He has also consulted with several school districts to improve the presentation of evolution in the curriculum. Since 1994, Petto has been actively involved in professional development activities for teachers in social and biological sciences, especially in the area of evolution education and the sociopolitical forces that teachers face in presenting this fundamental biological theory.
Suggested Honorarium: $1500
Topics:	For parents, teachers, and school boards
		What is evolution, anyway? Why teach evolution?
		Understanding the process of science
		Preparing future teachers
	For editors and reporters:
		What is a scientific controversy?
		Writing about evolution.
	For the general public:
		Evolution: What does it matter?
		Evolution and conservation
		Evolution: The way life works

Speaker:	Joshua Rosenau
Title:	Public Information Project Director
Education:	Doctoral candidate, University of Kansas (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology); B.A., University of Chicago (Biology)
Josh Rosenau is a Public Information Project Director at NCSE. At the University of Chicago, he majored in Biology, where he researched the evolutionary relationships between Philippine rodent species based on phallic morphology. An interest in the ways that ecological interactions lead to morphological differentiation brought him to the natural history museum at the University of Kansas, where he is currently completing a doctorate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His research focuses on modeling the ecological niche and geographic ranges of species. He is especially interested in the ways that ecology influences the biogeography and evolution of mammals. As an evolutionary biologist in Kansas during the 2005 state science standards fight, Josh worked with grassroots groups and the media to improve public understanding of the issues, and to promote honest and accurate science education. Media outlets from local papers to MSNBC and Nature magazine quoted him and his online writings to help their audiences understand the events in Kansas and their broader context. In addition to close coverage of the school board and education policy, he created websites contrasting the scientific contributions of ID and other forms of creationism with the broad utility of evolution to sciences from astronomy to zoology, and especially in medical research. In addition to the ecology and evolution of mammals, Josh is interested in the process by which the public gathers information about science, and in ways scientists can be more effective in helping the public understand what science is and how we know what we know.
Suggested Honorarium: $300
Topics:	For the general public:
		Biological diversity and its causes
	For scientific audiences:
		Communicating science to the press and the public
	For all:
		Who are the antievolutionists, and how can you respond to them?

Speaker:	Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D.
Title:	Executive Director, NCSE
Education:	Ph.D., University of Missouri (Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Scott, a former university professor, is the Executive Director of NCSE. She has been both a researcher and an activist in the creationism/evolution controversy for over twenty-five years, and can address many components of this controversy, including educational, legal, scientific, religious, and social issues. She has received national recognition for her NCSE activities, including awards from the National Science Board, the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Geological Society of America, and the American Humanist Association. A dynamic speaker, she offers stimulating and thought-provoking as well as entertaining lectures and workshops. Scott is the author of Evolution vs Creationism and co-editor, with Glenn Branch, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools
Suggested Honorarium: $5000
Topics:	For the general public:
		Creationism and evolution: historical, scientific, political, legal, educational, and/or religious perspectives (as requested)
	For scientists and teachers:
		Teaching evolution and/or the nature of science
		Coping with antievolutionism
	For school boards and administrators:
		Legal aspects of teaching evolution and creationism

Speaker:	Susan Spath, Ph.D.
Title:	Public Information Project Director
Education:	Ph.D., M.A., University of California, Berkeley (History of Science) A.B., Biology, Harvard University
Susan Spath joined NCSE as a Public Information Project Director in the summer of 2004. After receiving her A.B. degree in Biology from Harvard University, she studied molecular and cell biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and then worked in biological research laboratories at the National Jewish Hospital and at U.C. Berkeley. She undertook post-graduate research in the history of science at U.C. Berkeley, from which she received her Ph.D. in 1999. Her dissertation offered new perspectives on the development of the experimental life sciences in the 20th century, especially microbiology and molecular biology. During her studies, she became especially interested in the historical and cultural evolution of beliefs about God, humanity, and nature in relation to the development of modern science.
Suggested Honorarium: $300
Topics:	For the general public:
		History of the Sciences of Life
	For university classes:
		The Order of Nature from Antiquity to the Present

Speaker:	Philip T. Spieth, Ph.D.
Title:	Director of Operations, NCSE
Education:	Ph.D., University of Oregon (Genetics)
Dr. Spieth is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught population genetics and evolution for 30 years. He continues to teach a seminar on evolutionary biology for freshman students. (The URL for the class web site is http://cnr.berkeley.edu/~pts/.) An active Episcopalian, Dr. Spieth has had a lifelong interest in the relationship between religion and evolutionary biology. He has worked for NCSE as its director of operations since 2000.
Suggested Honorarium: $500
Topics:	For the general public:
		The creationist assault on evolutionary biology -- A brief overview of the principal contemporary anti-evolutionary movements
	For church groups:
		Evolution, God and Chance -- A look at the intelligent design creationists' contention that evolutionary biology and Christianity are intellectually incompatible

Other Staff

Name:	David Almandsmith
Title:	Office Assistant, NCSE
Education:	A.B., University of California, Berkeley (Biological Sciences)
David served with the Peace Corps in Lesotho [Africa] as a teacher trainer. He taught middle school math and science in Los Angeles. He was Research Director of the International Bird Rescue Research Center. He completed coursework toward a Masters in Physiology at California State University, East Bay. His licenses for road racing [motorcycle] and flying [single-engine land, high performance] are not currently active.

Name:	Stuart Fogg
Title:	IT Project Specialist, NCSE
Education:	A.B., University of California, Berkeley (Physical Sciences)
Stuart Fogg joined NCSE after retiring from Diablo Valley College, where he worked as an Electronics Specialist and an Instructor of Physics and Computer Science. His specialties include laboratory equipment, computer hardware, TCP/IP networking, and UNIX.

Name:	Carrie Sager
Title:	Project Assistant, NCSE
Education:	B.A.(Hons), University of Toronto (History)
Carrie Sager is NCSE's Project Assistant, though in the past she has served as both a general office assistant and information technology assistant. She can often be found staffing NCSE's booth at conferences and conventions.