About the Editor

Joselyn J. Todd, Ph.D., Cary, North Carolina (But a Midwest Native)

I come from a family of educators as my parents have a combined 70 years of public education experience between them (special education and environmental sciences). Two of my siblings are also in education. My twin sister is vice principle of one of the largest elementary schools in Kansas. It is an national award winning school in spite of its 40% turnover rate due to its location near Fort Riley, KS (many, many deployed parents). My brother is an award winning teacher that teaches advanced physics and math at a small high school in Illinois. My youngest sister is the only one of us that escaped the education “bug”. She owns her own company and designs web applications and websites for medical schools. One of her largest clients is Duke University Medical School.

I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Science Secondary Education from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in 1990. After obtaining my Illinois State Teaching License in Upper School and Middle School Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and General Science, I went on to earn my Ph.D. degree in Molecular Genetics at the University of Illinois. My research focused on natural forms of gene silencing. After earning my Ph.D., I went on to become a NSF/USDA/DOE Tri-Agency Fellow at North Carolina State University. As a postdoctoral fellow, I focused on gene silencing in transgenic plants, gene targeting during plant transformation, and the testing of human genomic control regions. In 1998, I was awarded a 3-year USDA Competitive Grant named “The Effect of Chromatin Elements on Plant Gene Expression,” along with Dr. William Thompson. This same year I made a career change, returning to my first love- teaching science. I joined the faculty at Cary Academy in 1998. As a senior faculty member at Cary Academy, I am the Middle School Department Science Chair; I also teach Middle School Science and and upper school chemistry as needed. Recently, I implemented an innovative program called “Advances in Medical Technology” that focuses on cardiovascular disease/health and cutting edge technologies within the field. In this program, students learn about medical uses of robotics and develop robots for medical applications via inquiry based learning. Over the past 10 years at Cary Academy, I’ve participated in the highly selective NSF-NSTA WebWatchers Program and have educated over one hundred educators in internet technologies in Cary Academy’s Summer Technology Institute. I’ve also also educated many girls in the use of technology as part of a technology club that I implemented upon my tenure at Cary Academy. I was recently awarded Sigma Xi Outstanding Teacher Award for Science and Mathematics Teachers (2006) and a 2007 NAIS Leading Edge Award for Programmatic Sustainability. Currently, I have one chapter in a book that has been published in collaboration with Eric Himburg- “Bringing Robotics to Life: Students Experience Life Sciences with Real World Medical Applciations” in “Classroom Robotics: Case Stories of 21st Century Instruction for Millenial Students” edited by Mark Gura and Kathy King.

Currently I am focusing on:

Integration of Web 2.0 technologies into my general science curriculum such as content delivery via RSS feeds, podcasting, and vodcasting.
Developing and facilitating the Cary Academy Advances in Medical Technology Program (AMTP) which focuses on robotic assisted cardiovascular surgery as well as other emerging medical technologies in other medical specialties.
Integration of robotics (Lego Mindstorms) into both my AMTP class and general science classes.
Assimilation of blogging and wiki use into my classroom curriculum.
Teaching the students in my middle school Web Club (Webgrrrls) state of the art technologies such as web development, podcasting, vodcasting, and RSS Feed technology.