Speakers

** David Schimel **
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Dr. David Schimel is a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), at the California Institute of Technology. His research focuses on carbon cycle dynamics and feedbacks, global climate models, and advanced data collection infrastructures for the study of the biosphere to support environmental decision-making.

Schimel started out as a linguistics students who fell in love with science after he enrolled in an ecology course to prepare for backpacking trips. He went on to major in biology and later added a degree in mathematics. After two years at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Ecosystems Center in Woods Hole and a PhD in grasslands ecology at Colorado State University, Schimel joined the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Following that, he spent five years as a professor and director at the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany. In 2002 he returned to NCAR as a senior scientist and then become Chief Science Officer and Principal Investigator of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). In 2012, Schimel joined JPL as a research scientist and group supervisor in carbon cycle and ecosystems.

As a convening author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Schimel, along with others at IPCC and former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He has published over 150 papers in the ecological literature and authored a number of books, including Climate and Ecosystems, from the Princeton University Press’ series primer series on climate.

**Kimberly Tanner** San Francisco State University

Dr. Kimberly Tanner is a tenured Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University. She directs SEPAL (Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory), which focuses on understanding how people learn science, especially biology. Her research in biology education holds the promise of revealing insights into preconceptions and misconceptions in biology that can guide strategies for curriculum improvement and teaching reform.

Trained as a research neurobiologist, Dr. Tanner is nationally and internationally recognized for both her research and her biology teaching. She received the //2012 National Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher Award// from the Society for College Science Teachers and the //2017 Bruce Alberts Science Education Award// from the American Society for Cell Biology. Tanner is a founding member of the editorial board for CBE: Life Sciences Education and co-author of the //Approach to Biology Teaching and Learning// series, which translates education research and pedagogical strategies into language accessible to undergraduate biology faculty.