NCSE names Amanda L. Townley subsequent executive director

Amanda L. (Glaze) Townley is becoming a member of the National Middle for Science Education and learning as its new govt director starting December 4, 2023. She will change Ann Reid, who has been main the group since 2014.

As an associate professor of middle grades and secondary science training at Ga Southern University, Townley specialised in science instructor schooling, evolution education and learning study, and science-literacy-focused general public outreach. Her exploration centered on the intersections of science and modern society, precisely the acceptance and rejection of evolution and climate improve, misconceptions and misuse of the nature of science in anti-science movements, and the impact of perceived conflicts involving scientific understandings and lifestyle on science literacy. She received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Alabama.

“I am thrilled to welcome Amanda Townley as the new Executive Director of NCSE,” Kenneth R. Miller, President of NCSE’s Board of Directors, claimed. “A longtime champion of effective and exact science training, she will deliver her encounter and enthusiasm to the work of NCSE as she spearheads our efforts to aid and defend science instruction in today’s hard ecosystem.”

A recipient of the 2018 Evolution Education and learning Award and the 2020 Biology Education Analysis Award from the National Affiliation of Biology Instructors, Townley served as an pro panelist for NPR’s Science Friday’s education and learning emphasis #TeachTheE and will work with businesses these as the Smithsonian Human Origins Plan and the Nationwide Geographic-funded Umsuka job at the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa. Her investigate can be discovered in scholarly journals these as Character Ecology & Evolution, Science Education, and The American Biology Instructor, and has been given press focus in venues these kinds of as Vox, NPR’s Science Friday, and Scientific American. She is president-elect of the National Association of Biology Academics.

“NCSE has very long been a reliable companion on my journey as a science educator and advocate, as it has for innumerable instructors and learners nationwide around its 41-yr heritage,” Townley explained. “It is the two humbling and an honor to have the option to provide this firm and the local community of science education and learning supporters who make its mission doable. I glimpse ahead to supporting NCSE advance its mission of selling and defending accurate and productive science education and learning, given that I wholeheartedly concur that all people justifies to engage with the proof.”

Townley speaks usually of her upbringing and its impression on her function: Having been reared in a Southern Baptist ministry spouse and children, she delivers to her analysis and outreach 1st-hand working experience of the difficulties concerned when there is a divergence among scientific knowing and personal beliefs.

Townley can take the helm of NCSE at a time when the business has ramped up its immediate do the job with science teachers, supporting them to assist pupils conquer frequent misconceptions about local climate modify, evolution, and the nature of science. In addition, she will oversee the organization’s attempts to conduct and publish pertinent investigation on how climate modify and evolution are coated in the classroom, and to check and counter threats to the correct and trustworthy instructing of individuals topics.

“Amanda Townley is the suitable individual at the appropriate time for NCSE,” claimed Ann Reid, NCSE’s present-day executive director. ”The group is speedily growing its potential to attain the instructors who want our assist to train local climate adjust and evolution properly and efficiently. Her knowledge about K-12 training, as well as her lifelong passion for evolutionary biology and her current investigation in weather science, will take these endeavours to new heights, making certain that 1000’s of students receive the science education they deserve.”