Emily Weiss

Emily Weiss got her first taste of experiential science education as a teenage volunteer on an EarthWatch expedition, studying dolphin feeding behavior, where she cultivated a love of science and the ocean. Before coming to MARE, Emily earned a B.A. in public policy with a focus on education reform from Brown University and a Master’s degree in language and literacy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While working as a certified reading specialist in the Massachusetts public schools, Emily partnered with classroom teachers to build literacy activities into their content area curricula and frequently led teacher workshops. She also served as a literacy consultant for the Massachusetts Department of Education and the MGH Institute of Health Professions Hanson Initiative for Language & Literacy, training hundreds of teachers and administrators in best practices in literacy instruction. Emily then went on to earn a Master’s degree from the Boston University Marine Program in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she studied the population structure of Atlantic cod on Georges Bank using molecular genetics techniques. Her work has been used to inform fisheries management decisions in New England. Emily has run a middle school science club and designed curriculum for and taught at the New England Aquarium’s Harbor Discoveries program and the Woods Hole Children’s School of Science on topics ranging from ecology to embryology to marine electronics and engineering.

While working for MARE, Emily has combined her background in education policy, literacy education, and marine science. She is particularly interested in the integration of science and literacy and increasing diversity in STEM fields. She has co-developed, taught and directed several Summer Science & Literacy Academies. She is currently the Co-Director of the NSF DRK-12 funded PRACTISE project, a collaborative research project with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, which utilizes the Summer Academy model to support teachers’ use of argumentation in science as called for in the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Emily has also co-taught the Communicating Ocean Sciences courses for UC Berkeley science students, coordinated the MARE Ocean Immersion program for schools, developed and led customized professional development experiences, provided ongoing technical assistance to multiple school districts around district-wide science education plans through the BaySci project, and authored curriculum. Emily managed the ¡Youth & the Ocean! (¡YO!) project for middle school and was the Co-Director of the ¡YO! high school project, both of which engaged underrepresented minority students in authentic research experiences. She is also the lead author of Beach Science from the GEMS AfterSchool KidzScience collection and the Ocean Sciences Curriculum Sequences for Grades 3–5 and 6–8.

Emily Weiss is PI of the IPT Project, focusing on district capacity building, teacher leadership development, professional learning design and implementation, and elementary science learning. She has co-led several research practice partnerships and other collaborative efforts across institutions, including the PRACTISE project that preceded IPT. Emily is the co-author of many curriculum materials used from kindergarten through high school, as well as in-service and pre-service teacher courses and professional learning programs.

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