All Osher Fellows

Edith Ackermann was a professor of developmental psychology, who worked at the MIT School of Architecture, the MIT Media Lab (Future of Learning Group), LEGO Learning Institute/Vision Lab/ Educational Division, INVIVIA, and other organizations and research institutions involved in the intersections between play, learning, design, creative thinking, and technologies. Before moving to the United States, Ackermann was a Scientific Collaborator at the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique (C.I.E.G.), under the direction of Jean Piaget. Prior to her appointment as Osher Fellow, Edith was an advisor to the Exploratorium’s PIE (Play, Invent, Explore) group. Her work at the Exploratorium focused on formulating and assessing public activities for the museum floor. Edith met with staff to discuss plans for the proposed piers site, and to discuss the scope of Exploratorium educational outreach. She worked alongside PIE and visiting artist-in-residence Chris Bell on the creation and installation of several of his “Light Play” experiments, and gave a presentation about design principles of interactive learning that she has been developing at MIT.

Jont is a senior researcher in acoustics, cochlear modeling, and digital signal processing at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. He worked primarily with exhibit development staff on new exhibit ideas in music and hearing, and ways to upgrade and improve existing sound exhibits.

Jeanne is a professor of music at MIT, and is widely recognized for her use of innovative techniques for teaching music, which interconnect with her research on the cognitive processes of learning. She helped us develop navigation and music exhibit ideas, as well as a possible teaching research collaboration project with MIT.

Mahzarin is a professor of Social Psychology at Harvard University and an adviser on our Science of Sharing project. Her work has relevance to many spheres of activity at the Exploratorium (visitor research, teacher training, programs, and more). She  studies human thinking and feeling as it unfolds in social contexts. Her focus is primarily on mental systems that operate in implicit or unconscious mode. In particular, she is interested in the unconscious nature of assessments of self and other humans that reflect feelings and knowledge (often unintended) about their social group membership (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, class) that underlie the us/them distinction. From such study of attitudes and beliefs of adults and children, she questions the social consequences of unconscious thought and feeling.

Mahzarin's work on unintended “unconscious” associations that can lead to preferential or discriminatory perceptions has had widespread impact beyond academia; some of her work has been used to raise individual awareness of the potential for unconscious bias. She recently published Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People. She has also written for the Harvard Business Review on business ethics and management issues.

Phil Bell is a professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research focuses on how and why people learn about science and technology and how it relates to what they want or need to accomplish in their lives.  He also investigates everyday learning, cognition, and expertise in science; children's argumentation; the use of digital technologies within youth culture; the design and use of novel learning technologies; and new approaches to inquiry instruction in science. He directs the ethnographic and design-based research of the Everyday Science and Technology Group, which is part of the larger NSF-funded Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Research Center (aka LIFE). His past work includes building web-based learning platforms and the design and review of K–12 science curricula. Currently, he is conducting learning ethnographies of youth and families across social settings. His academic studies were in human cognition and development, science education, electrical engineering, and computer science.

Remo Besio worked in the machine tool industry prior to joining the Swiss Science Center Technorama as a business administrator. In 1990, inspired by visits to the Ontario Science Centre and the Exploratorium, he proposed a radical new approach for Technorama: to transform it from classic, objects-based exhibitions into a lively, hands-on, modern science center learning environment.

His plan was accepted and he was appointed executive director to accomplish this transformation. Technorama built a world-class collection of kinetic, phenomena-based contemporary art pieces along with innovative, interactive science exhibits. His work was recognized with the Kulturpreis der Stadt Winterthur (Cultural Award of the City of Winterthur) in 2001. After eighteen years as executive director of Technorama, Besio retired in 2008. He now works as a consultant for new and emerging science centers throughout Europe.

In addition to his achievements at Technorama, Besio held a diploma in marketing and was an accomplished pianist who performed with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

Retired as director of education at Kings College in London, Paul is an internationally respected leader on assessment and teacher education. He is involved with a number of curriculum and education testing and assessment programs in the US and Europe, including the US National Standards Program to revamp the way assessment is carried out in the schools. He greatly helped us to think through and develop a plan for creating a degree-granting science teacher learning center based in the Exploratorium.

Michael Bradke is a musician, music ethnographer, educator, and musical exhibit and instrument designer. He leads workshops, educator trainings, and performs in festivals sharing traditional music and rhythm making with voice and body such as "clapping culture" and "mouth music," which often result in impromptu group performances. He has also organized instrument-making workshops at festivals, schools, art academies, and science centers. Bradke received the 2000 German Culture for Children Award, was part of the 2011 Abu Dhabi Science Festival, and designed many exhibits for Swiss science center Technorama’s special 2014 Soundscapes exhibition.

Ken Brecher is a theoretical astrophysicist and Director of Science and Mathematics Education at Boston University. His relationship to the Exploratorium dates back to 1976 when he asked Frank Oppenheimer to contribute an article to the MIT magazine on the occasion of (former Osher Fellow) Phil Morrison’s 60th birthday. Ken has been active in the world of informal science education, and served as Project Scientist for MicroObservatory project, which developed a network of telescopes controllable via the Web for use by students and teachers. At the Exploratorium, he contributed numerous ideas for new exhibits and, with the help of the Teacher Institute, built a walk-in exhibit that explores the ultraviolet spectrum. Ken also taught classes in the summer Teacher Institute program, participated in Iron Science Teacher, and worked with exhibit developers, Web site developers, the Cinema Arts staff, and others.

Orna Cohen has studied theater, learning research, and psychology. Born in Israel, she moved to France as an adult and created the children's area of the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie, which opened in 1986. She moved on to all-ages exhibitions with the very popular "Me Games" exhibition then worked with Dialogue Social Enterprises in developing "Scenes of Silence," which is designed to bring together deaf and hearing worlds. She developed and taught a post-grad course on child and adolescent psychology with the perspective of cognition and museography, and has developed instruments for visitor evaluation and research.

She is currently developing Dialogue of Generations, a program similar to Dialogue in the Dark and Scenes of Silence that will bring together individuals of all ages with elderly guides. This program will offer perspectives from the elderly on their lives, values, and insights, promoting dialogue and helping to dispel stereotypes or similar negative assumptions.

A longtime science writer for the Los Angeles Times, K. C. Cole is a professor at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism and the author of eight nonfiction books, most recently Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up. A former staff member and longtime friend of the Exploratorium, K. C. worked with its founder, Frank Oppenheimer, in the 1970s. During this fellowship she worked with exhibit-development teams on the Seeing and Matter/World projects, and helped advise the media and editorial staff in developing museum content and programming for the Exploratorium’s Web site.

Jim is a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley, and research professor with the Santa Fe Institute, a research institute for studies in nonlinear dynamics and complex systems. During his fellowship, he served as senior advisor for the development of a special exhibition entitled Turbulent Landscapes: The Natural Forces that Shape our World. He was highly effective in helping the exhibition team develop a series of communication goals for the overall exhibition, and also helped ensure accuracy in the content of the information conveyed to the general public through various interpretive materials. Jim was instrumental in securing a donation of a special "Netra Server" from Sun Microsystems, enabling the Exploratorium to enhance online programs, and to accommodate the numerous visitors to the Exploratorium’s Web site. Jim also spent many hours in lengthy conversation and interviews to aid in the development of a random-access audio tour developed for the exhibition.