Curatorial and Senior Education Staff
Dr. Margaret Honey, president and CEO, joined the New York Hall of Science in November of 2008. She is widely recognized for her work using digital technologies to support children’s learning across the disciplines of science, mathematics, engineering and technology. Prior to joining NYSCI, she served as a vice president of the Education Development Center and director of EDC’s Center for Children and Technology.
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While at EDC, Dr. Honey was the architect and overseer of numerous large-scale projects funded by organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Education Sciences, The Carnegie Corporation, The Library of Congress, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Energy. She also co-directed the Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory, a 40 million dollar federally-funded initiative designed to help educators, policy makers and communities improve schools by helping them access and leverage the most current research about learning and K–12 education.
Dr. Honey has helped to shape the best thinking about learning and technology with special attention to traditionally underserved audiences. She has directed numerous research projects including efforts to identify teaching practices and assessments for 21st century skills, new approaches to teaching computational science in high schools, collaborations with PBS, CPB and some of the nation’s largest public television stations, investigations of data-driven decision-making tools and practices; and with colleagues at Bank Street College of Education, she created one of the first internet-based professional development programs in the country. From her early involvement in the award-winning and ground-breaking public television series “The Voyage of the Mimi” to her decade long collaboration on the education reform team for the Union City (New Jersey) school district, Margaret Honey has led some of the country’s most innovative and successful education efforts.
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Eric Siegel, director and chief content officer leads the education, program, exhibition development, science, and technology functions at NYSCI. He led the planning and institutional fundraising for the $92 million expansion completed in 2004, as well as directing the development of 4 major exhibitions. He directed two recently completed exhibitions ShadowPLAY and Rocket Park Mini Golf, and is leading the
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development of two major exhibitions that will open in 2014.
Siegel has been in senior roles in art and science museums for over 25 years and has published extensively in the museum field. As a consultant he has worked with They Might Be Giants, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Endowment for the Arts and many other organizations. He is President of the National Association for Museum Exhibitions; Board Member of SolarOne, an urban environmental organization in NYC; and past Chairman of the Museums Council of New York City. He is a lifelong musician who has composed music for network and cable television, and currently performs actively on guitar and piano.
Siegel graduated from the CORO Leadership New York program, and holds an MBA in arts administration from SUNY Binghamton. He teaches actively as a member of the graduate faculty of the New York University Museums Studies and Interactive Telecommunications programs.
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Robert Logan, executive vice president and chief operations officer, joined the New York Hall of Science in December 2004. His primary areas of responsibility include Visitor Services, Exhibit Maintenance, Facilities Management and Security.
He gives oversight to Membership, Special Events and Facility Rentals. He is also responsible for the relationship management
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of the Hall’s retail and food service outsource partners.
Prior to joining the Hall, he held positions in Visitor Services and Audience Development at the Dahesh Museum of Art and The New York Botanical Garden. Previously he served as Senior Manager for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Annual Events.
He received a M.A. from Northwestern University’s School of Speech and an undergraduate degree in theater from San Francisco State University.
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Dr. Preeti Gupta, senior vice president for education and family programs, is responsible for strategic planning and program development for the internationally replicated Science Career Ladder Program, as well as divisions of student programs, digital learning, family learning and NYSCI’s science technology library. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Bioengineering from Columbia University, a Master’s Degree in Education from The George
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Washington University and a doctoral degree in Urban Education from the City University of New York Graduate Center. In 1999, she was selected as one of forty-two women who have contributed to the community in unique ways showcased in a photo exhibition, The Many Faces of Queens Women. In 2005, she won the Inaugural National Roy L Schafer Leading Edge Award for Experienced Leadership in the Field from the Association for Science Technology Centers. Her research interests include teacher preparation, youth employment and workforce development and the role of cultural institutions in mediating identity development in youth.
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Jennifer Correa, senior manager of Explainers, oversees all aspects of the Science Career Ladder program constituting 150 active participants and over 1,000 alumni. She leads key efforts for the NSF-funded CLUSTER project designed to support pre-service teachers who work as Explainers and at the IMLS-funded SCL Dissemination program.
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Correa initially joined the Science Career Ladder program as a summer intern from a local high school for pregnant and parenting teens. Over the last 12 years, Correa has climbed through the Science Career Ladder program while earning her B.A. from Queens College in Media Studies and Masters in Public Administration from Baruch College.
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Chris Lawrence, director of formal and informal learning and teaching, conceives and manages educational programs that utilize digital and web-based tools for both on-site and distance learning applications. In 2006, he re-launched the Virtual Visit videoconferencing program at NYSCI. Lawrence served as project director of NYSCI's ITEST grant, Crime Scene Information Technology, culminating in 2008; and currently
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is overseeing the NSF ITEST Virtual Hall of Science grant. Both in his role as project director and as manager of the educational technology department at NYSCI, he he has developed methodologies and practices for weaving technology into STEM-related formal and informal science experiences.
Lawrence has a Master's in Museum Education from the Bank Street College of Education.
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Sylvia Perez, director of formal and informal learning and teaching, oversees all of NYSCI’s student-related programs including the After School Science Club and outreaches, Schools Out! Innovation Camps, student workshops and Extended Learning experiences. She is responsible for creative curriculum design and the correlation of science concepts with national science standards and the needs of the schools and students.
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She has been at NYSCI for more than 10 years, and has more than 15 years of experience expanding informal education and youth development programs. Throughout her time at NYSCI, she has initiated several new and exciting science programs including Discovery Days, Science After Dark, Preschool Science, and most recently, Home School Days and the first girls only science camp.
Perez has a B.A. from the University of South Dakota in Anthropology with a minor in Archaeology and a M.A. from City College in Museum Studies.
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Rebecca Reitz, senior manager of the Science Technology Library,is known as “The Librarian” to the families, educators, staff members and school groups who frequent the library. She dedicates herself to creating a warm and welcoming learning space.
With an Masters in Library Science from Palmer School of
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Information Science, Rebecca has worked in several school libraries in Manhattan. She became a fan of the Science Technology Library while visiting NYSCI with her daughter, so she "jumped at the opportunity" to run the Library.
Matching the patron with the resource is her favorite part of being a librarian. She believes this is easy at NYSCI because the Library holds a collection of diverse learning materials representing a wide range of disciplines, sources, points of view, difficulty levels, and formats that accommodate various learning styles, interests, and purposes. Introducing her patrons to authors and illustrators, helping teachers teach and guiding young scholars in their science fair research satisfies Rebecca’s own librarian mission.
A native New Yorker, Rebecca is chair of the Library Committee at her daughter’s school, Hunter College High School, and a member of a local group, Urban Librarians Unite.
Prior to her librarian life, Rebecca worked in the public relations field, most notably with jazz musicians, concerts and clubs. Rebecca also worked as a program editor at A&E television. She continues her interest in artistic expression at NYSCI by appreciating science through the filter of poetry, painting and music.
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Alice Stevenson, senior manager of family programs and Preschool Learning, oversees programs, exhibits and staff training. Her department is responsible for weekend family programming, including auditorium shows and theatre, family events such as Chemistry Day and Cyberchase Day, science-related creative projects and experiments and special events such as Science Sleepovers and Science Discovery Days.
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She manages NYSCI’s Early Childhood Initiative; overseeing Preschool Place educators, preschool programming, exhibits and spaces. She served as project director for NYSCI’s fall 2009 Catapult Month and related programming. She contributes to NYSCI’s community partnership programming and works to support visitors with special needs. Across her department, she and her staff utilize reflective teaching practices, as well as audience evaluation and observation, to provide the best possible visitor experience. In 2009, she worked with an independent evaluator to research early childhood learning at Preschool Place exhibits, and presented the results at various conferences. Throughout her time in early childhood classrooms and museum education departments, Stevenson has advocated for experiential and developmentally appropriate experiences for younger children and their families in cultural institutions.
Stevenson has a B.A. from New York University in Art History and a M.A. from SUNY Stony Brook in Comparative Studies.
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One of the research models that he is presently involved with is the integration of university and museum resources. This partnership tests whether a museum-university partnership where students enroll in a rigorous secondary science education program at City College of New York and also work as Explainers for 1000 hours at NYSCI develop into confident, competent and well-prepared first year science teachers.
Many of the courses he has taught both at the university level and in informal science institutions have focused on science teacher preparation for all grade levels. By incorporating reform-minded science pedagogy into “traditional” methods classes he has been able to encourage and empower prospective teachers to try these techniques, allowing them to gain confidence in the low stakes atmosphere of the university classroom. Once they have access to the resources to promote this type of learning, the teachers have stated that they feel more confident, comfortable and competent at teaching science in this way in their own classrooms.
Signorello has a B.S. from SUNY Stonybrook University in Physics with a minor in Education, and a MSed from Queens College in Secondary Education. He is currently a doctoral student in New York University's Teaching and Learning Program.
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Dr. Stephen Uzzo, vice president of technology, focuses on a number of projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning; sustainability and network science including Connections: the Nature of Networks, a public exhibition on network science that opened in 2004. He was also the local organizer for the 2007 International Conference and Workshop on Network Science. In addition to
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his work at NYSCI, Dr. Uzzo serves on the faculty of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) Graduate School of Education, where he teaches STEM teaching and learning.
During the 1980’s, he worked on a number of media and technology projects. In 1981, he was part of the launch team for MTV and was appointed Chief Engineer for Video/ Computer Graphics Production and Distance Learning Networks for the NYIT Video Center in 1984. Other projects during that period included the first all digital satellite television transmission, best practices group for NBC Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, and a team of scientists and engineers at Princeton’s Space Studies Institute to develop and test lunar teleoperations simulators.
During the 1990’s, Dr. Uzzo served on numerous advisory boards for educational institutions, as well as facilitating major technology initiatives amongst K-12 public/private schools, higher education and government to improve STEM literacy. His work on various projects important to conservation include ecosystems studies that were instrumental in blocking offshore oil drilling in New York waters and a cross sound bridge in Oyster Bay, as well as cleanup planning for superfund sites. He has worked on preservation and open space projects on Long Island and the San Francisco Bay Peninsula. He holds a PhD. in Network Theory and Environmental Studies from the Union Institute.
Projects
Publications
- Teaching Children the Structure of Science, Paper 7243-6 Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis, 2009, San Jose, CA
- The Man Who Spoke to Stones (Chapter in anthology “Terra Nova – Writing the Future: Progress and Evolution”), Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. 2004
- Imaging in Extreme Environments: Proceedings, 2nd International Design for Extreme Environments Assembly, 1993, McGill University, Centre for Northern Studies, Montreal, PQ.
- Discrepancies in Color Reproduction Technology: Computer Output Technology Course Notes (Course #1) Association for Computing Machinery, SIGGRAPH Conference, 1989, Boston, Mass.
Conferences
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