Tamara Ledley is passionate about helping individuals and organizations see the importance of and the ability to integrate an understanding of science into the decisions they make for themselves, their businesses, communities and society. She has more than 35 years of science and science education research and development experience. In her science research she studied Earth system science examined the mechanisms that cause climate change. Her science education research and development included curriculum development, teacher professional development, and building student’s understanding of climate science especially in deepening their understanding of change over time and space.
Tamara has extensive experience in guiding professionally diverse groups to achieve greater collective impact by aligning their diverse talents and capabilities to reach common goals. In the AccessData project she facilitated over 70 teams of scientists, technologists, educators, and curriculum developers to integrate scientific data into classrooms. This effort led to the award-winning Earth Exploration Toolbook. She was co-founder and chair of the CLEAN Network, a professional diverse community of over 600 climate literacy stakeholders who share expertise, experience, and resources to increase their collective impact.
Tamara was a 2017 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow has been awarded the American Geophysical Union’s Excellence in Earth and Space Science Education award and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was Senior Scientist and Chair of the Center for STEM Teaching and Learning at TERC. She received her PhD from MIT in atmospheric and climate science and her BS from the University of Maryland in astronomy. When not working Tamara enjoys running, pottery, and chasing and photographing solar eclipses.
PhD. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, Advisor: Professor Reginald E. Newell, Dissertation Title: A Sensitivity Study of Climate Using Energy Balance Cryospheric Models. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54296
B.S. University of Maryland (College Park), Major in Astronomy, Citation in General Honors
2013 Journal of Geophysical Education Outstanding Paper award for “A Model for Enabling an Effective Outcome-Oriented Communication Between the Scientific and Educational Communities” by Ledley, Taber, Lynds, Domenico, and Dahlman, http://nagt-jge.org/doi/abs/10.5408/11-234.1, August 2012.
