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Laura Bottomley directs The Engineering Place for K-20 Outreach at North Carolina State University. She is also a teaching professor in the colleges of engineering and education at North Carolina State University and director of Women in Engineering. She teaches classes in engineering for freshmen and sophomores, and for juniors in elementary education.

In her role as director of The Engineering Place at NC State, Dr. Bottomley and her colleagues reach more than 5,000 students, 200 teachers, and 500 parents each year. The programs she leads include summer camps for K-12 students; programs that send undergraduates and graduate students into schools to work with elementary and middle school students; training sessions for NC State engineering alumni who want to be volunteer teachers in their communities; and professional development and classroom support for K-12 teachers who want to introduce engineering concepts to their young students. She and her colleagues lead teacher workshops in STEM around the state.
In 2009 Dr. Bottomley was selected for a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics, Science and Engineering Mentoring by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and also by the Educational Activities Board of the IEEE for an Informal Education Award. She was also inducted into the YWCA Academy of Women in 2008 for her contributions to eliminating racism and empowering women.

Dr. Bottomley received her bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1984 and 1985, respectively. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from NC State in 1992. She has previously worked at AT&T Bell Labs on ISDN standards and at Duke University teaching classes and directing a lab in the electrical engineering department.

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J. Jill Rogers is the program coordinator for ENGR 102 HS at the University of Arizona. ENGR 102 HS is an AP-type, college-level, introductory engineering course offered to high school students. Over the years Jill has developed K-12 science summer camps, conducted K-12 educational research, developed engineering curriculum for formal and informal education venues, and developed robotics outreach programs for children’s museums and K-12 schools. Jill is a certified teacher and holds a master’s of science in education. Her master’s thesis topic examined middle school student attitudes towards robotics and considered gender differences. She is a member of the National Science Teachers Association, Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O), and ASEE. She has long been an advocate for improving K-12 STEM education. Jill’s research interest lies in the K-12 pipeline to engineering and the ways to bring young people, particularly underrepresented populations, into STEM careers.

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Dr. Merredith Portsmore is the associate director for Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (www.ceeo.tufts.edu). Merredith received all four of her degrees from Tufts (B.A. in English, B.S. in mechanical engineering, M.A. in education, and Ph.D. in engineering education). Her research interests focus on how children engage in designing and constructing solutions to engineering design problems and evaluating students’ design artifacts. Her outreach work focuses on creating resources for K-12 educators to support engineering education in the classroom. She is also the founder of STOMP (stompnetwork.org), and LEGOengineering.com (legoengineering.com).

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Dr. Jeff Goldberg is dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona and an accomplished educator and course designer. Dr. Goldberg has co-authored an award-winning textbook on production planning and inventory control (with Ron Askin - Joint Publishers Book of the Year Award - 2003, Institute for Industrial Engineering), and a set of case studies used in introductory operations research classes. He did early work in web-based education and has had classes online since 1997. His teaching awards include the Andersen Consulting Teaching Award, 1992; a sabbatical appointment to the United States Military Academy, department of systems engineering, 1995-1996 (awarded the Department of the Army, Commander’s Award for Civilian Service); the UA University-Wide Teaching Award for Meritorious Departmental Achievement in Undergraduate Education, 1997; and the EL-Paso Natural Gas Foundation Faculty Career Teaching/Research Achievement Award, 1999. He is a long-time supporter of strategies for recruiting, retaining, educating, and supporting a diverse group of engineering students and ENGR 102 in HS is a strong component in the UA program portfolio.

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