Hi, I’m Frances Donovan, a former research scientist and mother of two school aged children who loves to teach kids about science and technology.
My education: I have a B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University. I did my Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine with a focus on neuronal cell death and Alzheimer’s disease. I continued my education with postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School where my research focused on spinal cord injury. After building and optomizing injury devices, I was offered a dream job working for Lockheed Martin Space Operations at NASA Ames Research Center. I’ve always been a NASA geek, so the opportunity to work on projects for the International Space Station was an incredible opportunity. I worked as a senior scientist on the Cell Culture Unit, an automated cell culture and sampling unit developed for NASA’s Space Station Biological Research Project. I also acted as a project scientist for the NanoSatellite project, and did project planning for the Biological Use of the Light Microscopy Module, a fully automated microscope planned for use on the International Space Station. It was an experience that broadened my horizons and cemented my love of technology.
Clearly I am not a programmer by training and robotics has only been my hobby, but in some ways that helps me as a teacher. I am all too familiar with the pitfalls and challenges of learning these new programs. Plus, I’ve chosen all programs and materials created by MIT, Tufts University and the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute that were designed to aid non-computer scientists to teach children about computer science and robotics. You could say they designed it for me.
I love these programs so much that I think all kids should be exposed to them. If you can’t come to a class with me, please take the time to download the programs and information from MIT and Carnegie Mellon and look at it yourself. I also have links to free online lessons. Your kids can easily take on much of this learning for themselves. Share this. Its fun.