Judith Scotchmoor

Professional Title
Project Coordinator
About Me (Bio)
Judy Scotchmoor is Assistant Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) in Berkeley, overseeing the museum’s education and outreach efforts. Judy received her BS in Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley in 1966 and then proceeded on to a long teaching career, primarily at the middle school level. Judy began her career at UCMP as a volunteer in the fossil prep lab in 1993, before joining the staff the following year. Taking advantage of her K-12 experiences, she soon initiated teacher professional development workshops and curriculum development focusing on evolution, paleontology, the geosciences, and their intersection reflected in the biodiversity that we see today. With a creative group of graduate students placing UCMP as a pioneer in web-based technology, she began to see the potential of the Internet to share science with a broad and diverse audience. Today she is the Project Coordinator of three award-winning websites: The Paleontology Portal, Understanding Evolution, and Understanding Science. She was also Project Coordinator for Geosciences in Alaska, a field and research opportunity for teachers and is the editor/author of three books to support K-16 teaching: Evolution: Investigating the evidence, Learning from the Fossil Record, and Dinosaurs: The science behind the stories. Judy was the recipient of the Joseph T. Gregory Award for outstanding service to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2004, the recipient of the American Institute of Biological Sciences Education Award in 2006, and in 2009 was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow “for leadership in defending teaching of evolution and quality science education through nationally recognized websites on these issues and through leadership of the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science."
University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
10/15/2008

This project will (1) identify the characteristics and needs of college-level target learners and their instructors with respect to evolution, (2) articulate the components for expanding the Understanding Evolution (UE) site to include an Undergraduate Lounge in which students and instructors will be able to access a variety of evolution resources, (3) develop a strategic plan for increasing awareness of UE, and (4) develop a strategic plan for maintenance and continued growth of the site.