Science Companion Team Members

Chicago Science Group and Chicago Educational Publishing

Max S. Bell – Co-Chairman

Max S. Bell is Professor Emeritus in Education and in the Physical Sciences Division of the University of Chicago, and a Principal Investigator at the University of Chicago Science and Mathematics Education Research Center. His research and development interests are in the science and mathematics capabilities of children, science and mathematics curriculum reform, and the teaching and learning of school mathematics including exploring "new media" technologies. An experienced K-12 mathematics teacher, he was an NSF Science Fellow at University of Michigan, where he received his PhD in mathematics education, and was one of the founding faculty members of the University of Chicago Master of Arts in Teaching program. He has been involved with developing mathematics materials for educators and children for four decades, with emphasis on mathematical modeling and practical connections to everyday experience. He has pioneered the use of embedded technology for mathematics education in elementary classroom environments; and acted as project director of several innovative educational technology initiatives. Dr. Bell was the founding Director of the Elementary Materials component of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP), and one of the founding principal authors of Everyday Mathematics.

Jean F. Bell – Co-Chairman

Jean F. Bell is a microbiologist by training (University of California at Los Angeles) and early experience. A founding master teacher at the Waterford Institute, she was a pre-school and elementary school teacher for seven years before embarking on basic research of the mathematics capabilities of young children, and the development of elementary level mathematics curricula. She is one of the founding principal authors of Everyday Mathematics, where she initiated the use of balanced assessment tools for evaluating student achievement. Ms. Bell received her Masters in Science in Teaching (MST) degree from the University of Chicago. She is President of Chicago Science Group.

Rita Ferrandino — Chicago Educational Publishing CEO/Publisher

Rita Ferrandino offers more than 18 years of experience building strong revenue in the higher education and K-12 markets. She has led the sales, acquisition, alliance and marketing efforts for traditional print, technology, and online products for some of the industry’s largest publishers.

Ferrandino leads the team at Chicago Educational Publishing which is the exclusive publisher and distributor of the Science Companion Series, a K-5 Elementary Science Curriculum. Science Companion is developed by Max & Jean Bell, the founding authors of Everyday Mathematics.

Career highlights include selling over $100 million of products to the higher education and K-12 markets, leading the acquisition effort for more than 50 titles, and forming revenue-producing alliances with over a dozen of the industry’s largest publishers and distributors. Ferrandino has been responsible for double-digit sales growth for at least four years at two different major publishers.

Most recently, Ferrandino was a Senior Partner at KnowledgeQuest Education Group where she worked with clients including WebCT, Carnegie Learning, Education Publishing Services, and W.H. Freeman Publishers. Earlier, Ferrandino was responsible for all aspects of marketing and sales at Technotects, a technology consulting firm that provided e-business solutions to the publishing industry.

Before her technology consulting experience, Ferrandino held roles at Thompson Publishing and Addison Wesley Longman Publishing, a Pearson Education company.

Ferrandino has her master’s of business administration and her bachelor’s of science in business management from Pennsylvania State University.

Science Advisory Board

Harold Pratt – Chair

Harold Pratt has served as the Director of Science Projects in the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education at the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences, and as a Senior Program Officer for the NRC National Science Education Standards Project. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has co-authored or directed the development of four textbooks and a book on educational leadership, and was selected by the National Science Education Leadership Association as the first recipient of the Nation’s Outstanding Science Supervisor award. He is a retired president of the National Science Teachers Association.

Marsha Barber

Science Coordinator, Jefferson City, Colorado Public Schools

Joe Exline

Joe Exline is Executive Secretary of The Council of State Science Supervisors and a private education consultant.

Mary Gromko

Title I Director / Science Kit Resource Center Director, Colorado

Patty Harmon

Teacher on Special Assignment, San Francisco Unified School District

Michael Jay

Michael Jay, MA is an expert in standards alignment and curriculum and classroom product development. Highlights of his career include the designing, packaging and marketing of over two dozen curricula and classroom products for major companies including Apple Computer, Chancery Software, and MediaSeek. A sought-after international speaker, Jay holds two patents for methods of correlating educational curriculum.

Michael Klentchy

Superintendent of the El Centro Elementary School District, El Centro, CA

Page Keeley

Maine Math & Science Alliance

Jerry Valadez

K-12 Science Coordinator for Fresno Unified School District and the Co-director of the Central Valley Science Project.

Research Associates

Kevin Bell – Researcher

Kevin Bell has extensive experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors as a hydrologist, project manager, analyst, instructional designer, and consultant. He received his Bachelors degree in energy engineering from Evergreen State College, and his Masters degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, with a focus on models for sustaining innovation and large-scale systemic reform.

Jim Flanders – Evaluation and Technology Consultant

Jim has over 25 years of experience as a mathematics education and computer science faculty member, mathematics teacher, department chair, academic dean and curriculum developer, and has held positions at Western Michigan University, Colorado College, and University of Chicago. He is currently a researcher at the University of Chicago Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education. Dr. Flanders received his PhD in mathematics education from the University of Chicago.

Catherine E. Grubin – Operations and Peer Review Support

Catherine Grubin is a research immunologist by training and professional experience. Dr. Grubin has worked for nearly a decade in the biotechnology industry, and has taught science at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She was most recently involved in an elementary-level informal science education initiative based at Emory University. She received her PhD in immunology from the University of Washington.

James McBride – Research Consultant

James McBride is the Director of the Science and Mathematics Education Research Center at the University of Chicago. He has held academic teaching and research positions at Princeton University, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago. He has had more than a decade of experience as senior research director and senior mathematical statistician at Response Analysis Corporation, responsible for overall project management and key advisory roles for numerous private and public statistical surveys and assessments. He was senior writer and statistics consultant for the NSF supported development of grades 4-6 of UCSMP Everyday Mathematics as well as Project Director for the planning and development of the second edition of UCSMP K-6 Everyday Mathematics. Dr. McBride is Principal Investigator in a current large-scale impact evaluation of NSF-funded elementary mathematics initiatives. He received his PhD in statistics from the University of Chicago.

Robert T. Ward – Principal Content and Standards Consultant

Robert Ward is Emeritus Associate Professor of Physics and Science Education at the University of Northern Iowa, where he taught for over two decades. Early in his career he was a writer on Science, A Process Approach, one of the first NSF supported elementary science projects. A specialist in inquiry-based science education, he has spent the last two decades developing and implementing courses for the pre-service preparation of elementary school educators in the area of science. He has served as Director or Co-director on three NSF supported teacher preparation curriculum development efforts, the most recent one being the Preparation of Elementary Mathematics and Science Educators Project. Dr. Ward was a science content consultant for the second edition of Everyday Mathematics. He received his PhD in physics from Harvard University.

Development and Evaluation Associates

Belinda B. Basca – Writer

Belinda is a curriculum developer with CSG. She is a former high school science teacher and educational researcher. Ms. Basca’s focus is on the complex causal models underlying specific science concepts and misconceptions. She has extensive experience designing interviews, inventories, and curriculum materials to measure and further upper elementary level students’ understanding of biology and physics concepts. Her involvement with Harvard Project Zero includes work as a researcher in the Understanding of Consequences Project, examining the long-term efficacy of direct intervention strategies for addressing common science misconceptions in elementary and secondary students, and as a professional development trainer for Project Zero. She received her Masters degree in education from Harvard University.

Colleen Bell – Writer

Colleen’s career has crisscrossed between the software industry and education. After a job writing online mathematics lessons, she worked as a writer and project lead at Microsoft Corporation. She later worked as integration manager for Mindsai, a children’s multimedia developer. She has taught at the preschool and post-secondary levels in the United States and Kazakhstan. She received her Bachelors degree in history from Brigham Young University and a Teacher Certification for elementary education from Pacific Oaks College.

Diane Bell – Writer

Diane is chief curriculum architect for CSG. She has considerable experience in marine research and undergraduate teaching across North America. Ms. Bell received her Bachelors degree in biology from Reed College, and has completed coursework and initial research for a PhD in marine biology from Northeastern University.

Cynthia Buchenroth-Martin – Evaluation Manager

Cynthia is the formative evaluation manager for CSG. An experienced science and mathematics secondary school teacher, she has also worked as a curriculum developer for the Bishop Museum of Hawaii, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. With Chicago Science Group since 1996, Ms. Buchenroth-Martin has been a writer for Science Companion and is currently director of field testing of that curriculum. Ms. Buchenroth-Martin received her Bachelors degree in biology from Lewis and Clark College, and her Masters degree in science education from the University of Arizona.

Rachel Burke Cusack – Editor

Rachel is a content editor for CSG, with a diverse background in technical writing and project production. Her previous experience includes a decade of project management work at Microsoft, and infrastructure development work as Director of Development Services for Evergreen State College

Lance Campbell – Writer

Lance is an experienced elementary and secondary teacher with nearly a decade of experience as a technical writer and courseware developer at Intel and Microsoft. He received his Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, and his Masters in teaching with endorsements in elementary education and secondary science at Antioch University.

Dorothy Freedman – Writer

Dorothy has a Bachelor’s degree from Reed College and an MST from the University of Chicago. She was a teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools 23 years, and was one of the authors of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (Everyday Mathematics) working on the Kindergarten, first, and second grade levels.

Wanda Gayle – Editor

Wanda has edited educational and training curriculum, technical documentation, programming and user guides, and even a mystery novel during the past 15 years. She also has experience as a technical writer, an on-line help developer, and a computer-based training designer and writer. She has a Bachelors degree in sociology and history from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and a partial Masters degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons College in Boston, MA. She is based in Salt Lake City, UT.

Annie Holdren- Writer

Annie received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998. With a specialty in archaeology, she developed a strong background in geology and natural history. She is an experienced writer, skilled at making the complicated clear. For over 10 years she has consulted as a writer and editor of books, articles, and brochures on topics ranging from historical geography to human evolution.

David Innes – Online Services Manager

David is a former project manager from Microsoft, specializing in the design and implementation of self-documenting computer based education and online help systems. His training includes extensive work in usability design for online technologies.

Deborah Leslie – Writer

Debbie is a curriculum developer with CSG. She is an elementary master teacher at a school in the First in the World school consortium in suburban Chicago, and was a developer for the second edition of Everyday Mathematics. She received Bachelors degrees in biochemistry and biophysics from Yale University, and her Masters degree in teaching from the University of Chicago.

Lauren Satterly – Writer

Lauren is a curriculum developer with CSG. She is an award-winning master teacher with prior experience as a science curriculum developer. She received her Masters degree in education from California State University at Fullerton.

Martha Sullivan – Writer

Martha is a curriculum developer with CSG. Her teaching specialty is secondary school biology, focusing on gifted and exceptional children. Ms. Sullivan received her Bachelors degree in biology from the University of Maryland (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa), and is currently completing her Masters in teaching at Heritage College, University of Washington.