Dr. Rebecca Kruse joined BSCS as a Science Educator in September 2008. She has worked on a variety of curriculum, professional development, and evaluation projects since joining BSCS, and is active in the organization’s Equity, eLearning, and Preservice Teacher Education initiatives. Rebecca is currently the PI for the Videocases for Science Teaching Analysis Plus (ViSTA Plus) project and also leads the BSCS team in the Toward High School Biology project.

Prior to her work with BSCS, Rebecca was a post-doctoral associate in math and science education at San Diego State University, during which time she also worked as a high school chemistry teacher and science staff developer for San Diego City Schools. Rebecca was an assistant professor of chemistry and a coordinator of education initiatives at Southeastern Louisiana University (SELU), coordinating National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation efforts for SELU’s secondary science and mathematics teacher education programs. More recently, Rebecca was an internal program evaluator research associate for the degree-granting Penn Science Teacher Institute at University of Pennsylvania.

Rebecca’s interests and efforts have focused on aspects of teacher preparation and professional development, including the development of inquiry-based college-level physical science curricula for prospective elementary teachers, content- and pedagogy-driven professional development for middle and high school teachers, and evaluation of teacher development programs and district curriculum implementation efforts. Rebecca’s research and evaluation work has included extensive use of Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) to document instructor practices at the secondary and post-secondary levels. Rebecca co-authored the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded curricula Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (It’s About Time, 2008) and Learning Physical Science (in development). Rebecca’s research publications include articles in Journal of Chemical Education, School Science & Mathematics, Journal for Research in Science Teaching, and a chapter in Educational Curricula: Development and Evaluation (Nova Science, 2008).

Rebecca earned a B.A. in Chemistry from Saint Louis University and a Ph.D. in bio-analytical chemistry from the University of Illinois. Rebecca was awarded an NSF GK–12 Teaching Fellowship as a graduate student, collaborating with scientists from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and central Illinois teachers to integrate high-performance computing and visualization in the high school science curriculum. Outside of BSCS Rebecca is an avid outdoor enthusiast and enjoys travel, cooking, Latin dancing, and playing fetch with her two Boston Terriers.

Read Rebecca Kruse's vitae.