The EET Workshops Project Team

Carla McAuliffe, Ph. D., Principal Investigator, Workshop Facilitator, and Internal Evaluator, Center for Science Teaching and Learning, TERC

Carla McAuliffe works as a curriculum developer, staff development specialist, project director, and evaluator at TERC. She is PI of the EET Workshops project and Co-PI of the TIDES and Eyes in the Sky projects. Carla has extensive teaching experience. She taught junior high life and physical science, high school Earth science and biology, and various instructional technology courses for college. She continues to provide preservice and inservice teacher training with visualization technologies, including GIS and image analysis.

Carla's research focuses on the role of 3-D visualization in student learning. She has facilitated online science education courses for teachers through Lesley University and Northern Arizona University. She has authored a variety of curriculum materials including interactive web lessons for Earth science, Earth Exploration Toolbook chapters, and Discovering Image Processing.

Tamara Shapiro Ledley, Ph. D., Co-Principal Investigator & Senior Scientist,
Center for Science Teaching and Learning, TERC

Tamara Shapiro Ledley, a senior scientist at TERC, received her PhD from MIT in meteorology 1983. She is PI of the AccessData Worshops project, the DataTools project, and The Earth Exploration Toolbook project. For 15 years, Tamara conducted a research program in Earth system science and global climate change with a focus on the polar regions at Rice University for 15 years. She has authored over 30 scientific papers.

Tamara directed and helped develop the Earth as a System chapter of the Teacher's Guide for the NSF sponsored GLOBE program, and contributed to the development of a group of museum exhibits for the NASA sponsored Museums Teaching Planet Earth project. She is also active in the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP Federation), the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), and in the Digital Library for Earth Systems Education (DLESE).

Rita Freuder, Curriculum Developer,
Complex Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire

Rita Freuder has formal education background from University of Rochester, NY (BA) and Boston University (MA) in mathematics. She has teaching certification in NY State, in high school math and has been certified and taught in New Hampshire high schools as a substitute teacher in math and the sciences. She taught FORTRAN at Boston University for 3 years, during the 1970's and has taught Numerical Methods for the Computer at the University of New Hampshire.

Rita was then employed at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) on a NASA project for the Great Observatories on the Gamma Ray Observatory mission for 17 years as a Computer Specialist. She transferred to research in the natural resources group, under the umbrella of the Complex Systems Research Center at UNH with emphasis on computer modeling data and analysis of remote sensing data about 7 years ago. During this period, opportunity to work in education again presented itself in the Education Committee of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP). From this affiliation, Rita became an Earth Exploration Toolbook chapter author and workshop presenter (both distance and live). Rita is currently the Chair of the Education Committee of ESIP. She continues to promote ideas for new chapters in the Earth Exploration Toolbook.