How People Learn and the Creativity Of Science
Speaker:
Karen Oates
24 Mar 2016
7:00 PM
Sun Room, Memorial Union
Karen Kashmanian Oates is a professor of biochemistry and the Dean of Arts & Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Previously, she worked at the National Science Foundation, where she was a deputy director of the Division of Undergraduate Education charged with supporting innovative programs to strengthen undergraduate education and help revitalize American entrepreneurship and competitiveness. Oates received her BS in biology from Rochester Institute of Technology and her PhD in biochemistry from The George Washington University. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Oncology and Hematology division before beginning her academic career at George Mason University. Sigma Xi Lecture Series
Oates served as associate dean for the new College of Integrated and Interdisciplinary Studies at George Mason University. She later served as inaugural provost for the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, where she established the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement and helped secure NSF funds for Science Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibilities, which works to improve undergraduate STEM education by connecting learning to critical civic questions. In 2012 she was inducted as a fellow into the prestigious American Association for the Advancement as a Science Education fellow.