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Become a Member of the Professional Development Working Group

The Professional Development Working Group welcomes new members who are willing to commit to being an active part of the team for a minimum of one year.  We especially seek members who reflect the diversity of the Citizen Science Association membership, including citizen science practitioners outside of academia.
Professional Development Working Group members are expected to:

1. Actively participate in working group conference calls, held bi-monthly.
2. Contribute to the planning and execution of at least one “product” of the working group each year, such as a blog post, a webinar, a workshop, or a member survey.
3. Share your enthusiasm and ideas for citizen science professional development with other members of the team.
4. Share the activities of the working group within your networks where appropriate

Professional Development Working Group members will get to:

1. Be a part of a dynamic team that responds to the professional development needs of the CSA membership and the larger citizen science community.
2. Have the opportunity to gain new skills by working with others to produce webinars, workshops, surveys, and publications.

If you are interested in learning more about the Professional Development Working Group or in joining the team, please contact our co-chair, Mark Chandler, mchandler@earthwatch.org.

Current Members of the Professional Development Working Group

Mark Chandler, PhD (Chair) <mchandler@earthwatch.org>

Mark has worked at Earthwatch Institute for over 15 years, overseeing the design and management of citizen science field projects led by scientists in over 35 countries. Mark currently is focused on enabling community-based and urban projects. He is interested in how different citizen science models and capacity building will allow citizen science to fulfil its potential in helping to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Dana Buchbinder, MEM <dana.buchbinder@gmail.com>

Dana works as a sustainable gardener and educator in Toronto, ON. Her citizen science work has included the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas (Ontario Nature), community air sensors (U.S. EPA), and Delaware StreamWatch (Ashland Nature Center). She has a BA from Wesleyan University and graduated as a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University in 2012.

Malin Ely Clyde, MA <Malin.clyde@unh.edu>

Malin (pronounced MAH ∙ lin) works at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension as a specialist in community volunteers.  She founded the Stewardship Network: New England, a collaborative effort to promote stewardship and citizen science volunteer opportunities hosted by over 180 conservation organizations, agencies, and towns in New England. She has a BA from Yale University and an MA from the University of Washington College of Forest Resources.

Caren B. Cooper, PhD <carenbcooper@gmail.com>

Caren is an associate professor at North Carolina State University, appointed to the Biodiversity Research Lab on display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. At NCSU, she is part of an interdisciplinary team of faculty in the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program in Leadership in Public Science. Caren is author of Citizen Science: How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery. She has published research with data from NestWatch, Project FeederWatch, Christmas Bird Count, Breeding Bird Survey, and My Yard Counts. She helped design citizen science projects at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology including YardMap, NestWatch, and Celebrate Urban Birds. She currently directs Sparrow Swap, and is soon launching Sound Around Town and Egg Scramble. She studies citizen science learning through the platform tools of SciStarter.com. She serves on the Board of the CSA (2017-2020), the ethics working group, and led the committee to create a new journal, Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. She was co-editor-in-chief for the CSA’s journal (2014-2016) and now associate editor (2017+). She is co-chair of the international CODATA-WDS Task Group on Citizen Science and the Validation, Curation, and Management of Crowdsourced Data.

Meg Domroese, MS <megdom1@gmail.com>

Meg coordinates training and facilitates collaboration among land trusts and partners in Wisconsin, based at Gathering Waters: Wisconsin’s Alliance for Land Trusts. She served on the steering committee that launched the Citizen Science Association in 2014, has a strong interest in the participant experience in citizen science and has conducted assessments of volunteers’ motivations and learning gains.

Colleen Hitchcock, PhD <hitchcock@brandeis.edu>

Colleen is a member of the Biology Department and Environmental Studies Program at Brandeis University. Her work focuses on citizen science as a tool for learning and engagement in the undergraduate classroom and with K-12 educators.

Abe Miller-Rushing, PhD <Abe_Miller-Rushing@nps.gov>

Abe serves as Science Coordinator for Acadia National Park in Maine. He works to find ways to get citizen science effectively and sustainably ingrained in conservation-related efforts, including science, learning, and decision making.

Sarah Newman, MS <sarahnewman.citizenscience@gmail.com>

Sarah is a Research Associate at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She is currently the Community Engagement Strategist for CitSci.org, Newsletter Editor for SciStarter, and author of the blog, A Citizen Science Life. She has also been the Director of the Citizen Science Center for Beaver Creek Reserve (Wisconsin) and Citizen Science Project Manager with Project BudBurst and Citizen Science Academy (national). Sarah has a BS in Wildlife Ecology and Biology from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and an MS in Ecology and Evolution from Florida State University.

Michelle Prysby, MS <mprysby@vt.edu>

Michelle is the director of the Virginia Master Naturalist program and an Extension faculty member in the Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation.  She has experienced citizen science from the viewpoint of a scientist (co-founder of the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project), an educator (at a residential environmental education center), a volunteer (in a variety of natural resource citizen science projects), and a project and volunteer organizer (in her current role.)  She has a Masters in Ecology from the University of Minnesota, and she lives in Charlottesville, Virginia in the United States.

Hannah Webber <hwebber@schoodicinstitute.org>

As Research and Education Projects Manager at Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park Hannah works in the interstices of research, education, and science communication. She engages diverse groups of stakeholders to address research, management, and education needs of the park, the community, and beyond. When not busy with work projects Hannah is hiking or looking for cool invertebrates in tide pools and under rockweed.