I am a Teaching Professor and was previously the Associate Department Head for the Undergraduate Program in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Penn State University Park campus in State College, PA.  From 2019 – 2023, I also served as the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Students in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State.

I have a wide variety of interests in teaching, research, and outreach, and have tried to capture many of them here.

Teaching:

• I created and teach Astronomy 401:  Fundamentals of Planetary Science and Astronomy, which is one of the required capstone courses in the Planetary Science and Astronomy major at Penn State, which is a relatively new major approved at Penn State during the 2013-2014 academic year.
• I co-created and co-taught, with Julia Plummer, the course Astronomy / Science Education 116:  Introduction to Astronomy for Educators.  This is an astronomy content course taught in a small group setting for pre-service teachers in the PreK – 4 and Middle Level (grades 4 – 8) CEAED major.  I am writing a free, open educational resources student guide for the course that is available to anyone interested in our course.
• I have taught face-to-face and on-line sections of Astronomy 1:  Astronomical Universe for University Park and World Campus students.  This is a one-semester survey of astronomy that covers all of astronomy in 15 weeks.  I co-authored the “storyline” web version of Astro 1 with my colleagues Jane Charlton, Nahks Tr’Ehnl, Kim Herrmann, and Anand Narayan.  I have also taught Astro 5:  The Sky & Planets for University Park students in face-to-face sections, which is our version of the first half of a two-semester survey of astronomy.
• I authored and taught the required course Astronomy 801:  Planets, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe for World Campus students enrolled in the on-line Masters of Education in Earth Science program, which has since ended taking on new students.
• I have previously taught and authored on-line versions of several other introductory astronomy courses and lab sections, including Astronomy 10:  Elementary Astronomy and Astronomy 11:  Elementary Astronomy Laboratory.   Julia Kregenow and I worked with Stephanie and Tim Slater and the CAPER team on a new lab manual for Astronomy 11 that incorporates labs designed with a backwards faded scaffolding approach.  We participate in professional development workshops for faculty interested in adopting these labs in their own astronomy courses.

Teacher Professional Development:

• I was a co-Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation Earth and Space Science Partnership (ESSP) at Penn State that was completed in 2017.   We worked with a number of school districts across Pennsylvania to improve the quality of instruction and student learning in Earth and Space Science in the middle grades (4 – 9).
• I am a member and former officer for the Pennsylvania Earth Science Teacher’s Association (PAESTA), and previously presented on astronomy pedagogy at their annual meeting.
• I was the Director of the Penn State In-Service Workshops in Astronomy from 2002 – 2019, and I will be taking on this role again for 2024 and beyond. In a long-term partnership with the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, we previously offered 1 – 3 workshops every summer primarily for middle-school and high-school teachers.  We  received significant funding from NASA’s Chandra and Hubble Education and Public Outreach programs to support teachers to participate in these workshops.  More recently, we have been offering one workshop per summer funded primarily by NSF broader impacts funds along with some funding from Barnes & Noble.

Outreach and Service:

• For many years, I managed, trained volunteers, scheduled shows, and still occasionally present shows in the Davey Lab Planetarium, which is a 15 foot diameter dome with a Spitz Nova III projector and seating for approximately 30.  I have helped to define the vision for a new, significantly larger facility, and we are in the fundraising stage for a state of the art planetarium and immersive visualization theater to be located at the Arboretum at Penn State.  Along with my colleague Richard Wade, we have also done some archival research on the previous planetarium at Penn State, housed in Osmond Lab in the 1940s and 1950s.
• I managed, trained volunteers, and led many of the open house telescope observing programs held at Penn State’s rooftop observatory on the sixth floor of Davey Lab.  I used to advise the Penn State Astronomy Club and the Penn State Pulsar Search Collaboratory Club, and I still collaborate with both clubs on outreach events.
• Along with Jane Charlton, I help to organize AstroFest, held each July.
• I discuss astronomy with Jon Nese on Weather World four times a year.
• I have written for “The Conversation” and done interviews for several other recent publications:
  • Planetary confusion: why astronomers keep changing what it means to be a planet
  • Supermoons are big and bright, but not as rare as the hype would suggest
  • Look up – It’s a satellite!
  • How do we find things in the blackness of space?  (interviewed)
• I served on the Board of Directors for the Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania, a science center in downtown State College, and our family is a big supporter of this jewel in our community.
• I am an advisory board member for the West Virginia University Center for Gravitational Waves and Cosmology

Research:

• Google Scholar publication and citation list
• Public ORCiD profile
• As part of the ESSP astronomy education research group, I collaborated with Julia Plummer, Scott McDonald, and a group of students to construct a learning progression that is focused on Solar System formation.
  • We have several recent publications on our work creating a learning progression in the field of Solar System astronomy and the scientific practices of astronomers:
    • Evaluating a Learning Progression for the Solar System: Progress along Gravity and Dynamical Properties Dimensions in Science Education, Plummer et al. 2020, Science Education
    • Have Astronauts Been to Neptune?  Student Ideas about How Scientists Study the Solar System, Palma et al. 2017, Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education
    • Development of a Learning Progression for the Formation of the Solar System, Plummer et al. 2015, International Journal of Science Education
    • Planetary Properties, A Systems Perspective, Rubin et al. 2014, Science Scope.
• Although I am not actively pursuing observational astronomy research at the current time, I have previously studied dwarf galaxies in the Local Group, the globular cluster population of the Milky Way, tidal dwarf galaxies in compact groups, as well as radio galaxies and blazars.

We use Attila Danko’s Clear Sky Chart to help us plan for the observing conditions at the observatory on the roof of Davey Lab. I highly recommend it for predicting observing conditions in the State College area.