Addison E. Lee Scholarship in Science Education
Vanessa Svihla
Vanessa Svihla is the 2008-2009 recipient of the prestigious award, the Addison E. Lee Scholarship in Science Education. Vanessa grew up near San Jose, CA, in the most diverse school district in the US. She spent a few years in Indiana, attending the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. Svihla received her undergraduate degree from Smith College, with a double major in Geology and Russian. She spent her sophomore year studying in Odessa, Ukraine. After graduating from Smith College, Svihla joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in the Philippines. There, she worked as an environmental education volunteer, exploring and mapping caves, training cave guides, and conducting informal education activities. After completing her Peace Corps assignment, she enrolled in graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin, earning a Master's degree in Structural Geology. As part of her Master's Degree research, she spent four months living in a tent in the Mojave Desert. Svihla continues her work at The University of Texas at Austin, pursuing a PhD in Science Education. Recently, she spent six months at the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center of the University of Washington as a visiting fellow. She continues to collaborate with LIFE researchers on the use of multi-user virtual environments for collaborative, dynamic assessment. In addition, Svihla edited a special issue of New Directions in Teaching and Learning, and recently authored two papers commissioned by the National Academies. She expects to receive her doctoral degree in May 2009. Her dissertation research focuses on the role of interaction in distributed learning of design in the context of biomedical engineering.
