2026-2027 Executive Committee
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Erin Dolan, PRESIDENT
University of Georgia
eldolan@uga.edu
Erin Dolan is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Innovative Science Education at the University of Georgia. As a neuroscience graduate student, she volunteered extensively in K-12 schools, which prompted her to pursue a career in biology education. She teaches introductory biology. Her research group, the SPREE Lab (Social Psychology of Research Experiences and Education), works to delineate the features of undergraduate and graduate research that influence students’ career decisions, including the influence of research mentorship.
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Elisabeth Schussler, PRESIDENT-ELECT
University of Tennesse Knoxville
eschussl@utk.edu
Elisabeth Schussler is a Distinguished Service Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, where she has worked since 2009. She has a B.S. in General Biology from Vanderbilt University, and a PhD in Plant Biology from Louisiana State University. She worked as a museum educator, biology lecturer, and at a nature park and science center before her first BER faculty appointment at Miami University in 2005. At UT she was the Director of Biology Teaching and Learning for 10 years. In this role, she led the introductory majors’ courses through a curriculum reform aligned with Vision and Change and created instructor communities of practice to support those changes. In 2022-2023 she served as UT’s Faculty Senate president. Her research program focuses on the dynamics between instructor practices and student emotional experiences in introductory biology classes, specifically studying student anxiety and perceptions of instructor support. She also has a long-standing research interest in graduate student teaching professional development in conjunction with her colleagues from the 2015 Biology Teaching Assistant Project grant. She teaches introductory biology and courses for graduate students to learn how to teach and research teaching and learning.
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Jamie Jensen, PAST PRESIDENT
Brigham Young University
jamie.jensen@byu.edu Dr. Jamie Jensen is a Discipline-based Educational Researcher (DBER) and Professor of Biology at Brigham Young University. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Science from Brigham Young University in 1999, a Master’s Degree in Biology, with an emphasis in Developmental Biology and Molecular Evolution, from Brigham Young University in 2003, and a Doctoral Degree in Biology, with an emphasis in Science Education, from Arizona State University in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, she ran educational research and taught at Chandler-Gilbert Community College where she had been teaching adjunct since 2005. She joined the faculty as a DBER in the Biology Department at Brigham Young University in 2010.
Her research foci include (1) the reconciliation of science and religion amongst religious students, (2) the creation of faculty development programs effective at teaching evidence-based instructional practices to STEM faculty, and (3) the development and assessment of undergraduate biology curricula that employ evidenced-based pedagogical strategies to increase student scientific reasoning skills and deep conceptual understanding. She teaches both majors and non-majors biology as well as advanced pedagogy classes as part of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Program at Brigham Young University. She is also a member of the Broader Social Impacts Committee for the Human Origins Initiative at the Smithsonian where she joins other religious scientists in helping the American public feel more comfortable with evolution. She has been attending SABER since 2013.
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Sheela Vemu, SECRETARY
Waubonsee Community College
svemu@waubonsee.edu
My current academic position as a two-year faculty member in a Hispanic-serving institution with a high % of First generation college-bound students presents unique challenges and opportunities. My involvement with the Community College Anatomy and Physiology Educational Research (CAPER) project and serving as Guest Editor for the special issue of CBE-Life Sciences Education (LSE) on Community College Biology Education Research has been invaluable. These roles have provided me with invaluable insights into how we can change our perspectives and policies to transform the two-year ecosystem into a more inclusive and equitable space. I've had the opportunity to participate in five national SABER meetings held in Minneapolis actively. In 2022, I presented a poster on Evidence of an Effective Study Strategy Intervention in a Community College Biology course, which was subsequently published. I was inspired to discuss pedagogical transformation using BER on a Two-Year Section panel at the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT). In 2023, I co-led a SABER Special Interest Group (SIG) for Community Colleges, which led to becoming part of the organizing committee to lead the first Regional Midwest SABER at St Louis.
I am excited to contribute to SABER's collective leadership and make it more representative and inclusive for scholars from community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and other underrepresented institutions. SABER can increase its membership and influence other disciplinary organizations to form collaborations that will help disseminate BER findings to classroom practitioners. My role as a monitoring editor for LSE has allowed me to see the relationship between innovative scholarly work and its application and understanding in an educational context. I envision SABER as a leading force in promoting inclusive and evidence-based teaching practices, and I am committed to working towards this vision in my elected office.
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Stephanie Gardner, TREASURER
Purdue University
sgardne@purdue.edu Stephanie Gardner is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences where she is an award-winning educator and discipline-based education researcher. She has a doctorate in Physiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with postdoctoral training in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Research in her group has focused on revealing student approaches to science practices including constructing mechanistic explanations, experimental design, and creating graphs and graphical abstracts to understand and communicate data and experimental concepts. Some newer research centers interdisciplinary problem-solving and examining how interdisciplinary research, collaboration, and identity are developed. She is the co-director of the CURE - Purdue program which aims to broaden student access to research by training and supporting instructors to bring research into the classroom. In 2026 she was inducted as an AAAS Fellow within the Education Division.
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Emily W. Grunspan, EX OFICIO MEMBER
SABER Managing Director
emilywgrunspan@saberbio.org
Emily Wojcik Grunspan is Managing Director of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). Her career has centered on education and the nonprofit sector, with experience in museums, zoos, and higher education as an educator, facilitator, and organizational leader. Her work has included developing and leading educational programs, facilitating learning and collaboration, and working across organizations to support their programs and initiatives.
Emily holds a master’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY. Her background in science, education, and nonprofit leadership gives her a broad perspective on the work of organizations and the communities they serve. Emily has a particular interest in biology education research, having entered college intending to major in biology before changing direction after a discouraging experience in her introductory biology course. That experience sparked an interest in how learning environments and instructional approaches can shape students’ experiences in science.
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Mary Pat Wenderoth, HISTORIAN
University of Washington
mpw@uw.edu
Mary Pat Wenderoth is a Teaching Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW) where she teaches animal physiology courses and conducts biology education research on how students learn biology. Her main research interests focus on assessing implementation of cognitive science principles in the classroom, particularly those associated with conceptual change, use of first principles in constructing conceptual frameworks in physiology and student metacognition.
She also does research on academic achievement gaps in STEM and effectiveness of professional development efforts to close those gaps. She received the UW Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001and has served as the co-director of the UW Teaching Academy. She was recognized by the National Association of Biology Teachers as the Biology Education Researcher of 2017. She received the Claude Bernard Distinguished Lectureship of the American Physiology Society Teaching of Physiology Section in 2019. She is co-founder of the UW Biology Education Research Group (UW BERG) and the national Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). She also served as President of SABER from 2010-2019. She served as a facilitator at the HHMI Summer Institute for Undergraduate Biology Education from 2007-2011. Dr. Wenderoth earned her B.S. in Biology from the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., a M.S. in Women's Studies from George Washington University, a M.S. in Exercise Physiology from Purdue University and her Ph.D. in Physiology from Rush University in Chicago. The Historian role has been created to facilitate communication, both between the executive committee and other SABER committees and with our membership more broadly.
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Past OfficersInstitutional affiliations reflect the affiliation held during the individual’s term.
Past Presidents
Presidents serve one year in each role: President-Elect, President, and Past President Miriam Segura 2024-2025
University of North Georgia Kelsey Metzger 2023-2024
University of Minnesota, Rochester Marcos Garcia-Ojeda 2022-2023
University of California, Merced
Stanley Lo 2021-2022
University of California, San Diego Jennifer Momsen 2020-2021
University of South Dakota Jenny Knight 2019-2020
University of Colorado, Boulder
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Past Treasurers Melinda Owens 2022-2025
University of California, San Diego Kristine Callis-Duehl 2019-2022
Dr. Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Past Secretaries Melanie Melendrez-Vallard 2023-2024
Anoka-Ramsay Community College Miriam Segura 2021-2023
University of North Georgia Joseph Dauer 2019-2021
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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