People

At the Lawrence Hall of Science, I work on two curriculum projects: Full Option Science System (FOSS) and Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies (OBIS). My career began in EE at the Teton Science Schools.

Nourishing, compassionate, and responsive educator, supporting, empowering, and learning alongside students of all ages. Integrating place-based, student-centered pedagogy from the wilderness to the four-walled classroom to provide engaging, meaningful, and wondrous learning.

As a researcher and manager for conservation and sustainability programs my work includes a national scale youth led community sustainability projects, protection of endangered species and habitats in Latin America, sustainable agroforestry and One Health

R.J. Multari, PhD, is an urbanist and educator whose research and teaching sit at the intersection of school planning, urban development, and communities. His doctoral dissertation -- indexed by ProQuest under Urban Planning, Land Use Planning, and Educational Administration -- examines how the institutional autonomy of American school districts from municipal government produced school planning and design decisions that deepened neighborhood disinvestment and accelerated urban decline in Niagara Falls, New York across a 55-year period. The dissertation was chaired by Ernest Sternberg, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, with committee members Nathan Daun-Barnett, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and Lauri Johnson, Professor of Urban Education. He helped establish, as social media chair, the American Planning Association's Public Schools and Communities Division, the professional body organized around this exact intersection of school planning and community development.

He holds appointments at the University at Buffalo and Erie Community College, where he teaches courses in urban environments, urban planning, and architecture and urbanism, and has served as Pro Tempore Director of the Environmental Design program at UB. His Social Science MS in urban informatics from the University at Buffalo, along with continuing education in climate resilience, urban sustainability, and data and urban governance, extend his planning credentials into environmental planning and current practice areas.

His research is grounded in the Buffalo Niagara metropolitan area, where hyperlocal archival specificity and deep geographic knowledge anchor a broader scholarly interest in post-industrial urban development, public school facilities planning, and the relationship between educational institutions and community change. He holds an Educational Administration PhD in Urban Education and Leadership, as well as an Educational Administration EdM, both from the University at Buffalo.

I am currently working on a double M.S. in parks and conservation and public administration at Clemson University. I hope to someday have a leadership role at an environmental organization that addresses both human and environmental needs.

Betsy's research on Ecological Identity shows that attunements in nature during childhood lead to behaviours related to these childhood attachments during adulthood reinforcing the importance of time spent in nature as a child contribute to adult behaviours through these childhood attunements.