Annalies Corbin is the President and CEO, and founder of the PAST Foundation. Under her direction PAST has successfully emerged as one of the nation’s leading developers of PreK-12 bridge programs, STEM teachers professional development, and STEM ethnographic knowledge capture. Her ground-breaking STEM bridge program with the Nebraska Zoo School excavating Yellowstone’s historic Marshall Hotel earned her the 2001 National Park Service award. Currently, she leads the Ohio STEM Learning Network’s Technical Assistance team helping STEM hubs and emerging schools throughout Ohio build sustainable networks and programs. Dr. Corbin received her doctorate from the University of Idaho in History and Historical Archaeology.

Tessa Riess coordinates PAST Communications and Public Relations. She received her degree in Communications from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2005. Riess’ experience working with small research companies and non-profits enables her to effectively coordinate and promote PAST’s community, staff, and interns. Riess is also the Marketing Manager of Bridgepoint Education in San Diego, CA.

Sheli Smith directs Operations and Programs at PAST. For over three decades, Smith has been involved in groundbreaking public outreach programs. Since joining PAST, Smith has developed award winning STEM problem based programs including Garbology, the Blacklick Watershed (an elementary STEM program), and is the principal author of Problems, Programs, and Projects: Designing Transdisiplinary Problem/Project-Based Learning. Smith directs the activities of the Program Design Center and consults with schools and districts in forming innovative partnerships for successful STEM application. Dr. Smith received her doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Marcy Raymond is the founding principal of Metro Early College High School in Columbus, Ohio. Since 2005 Raymond has been one of the guiding designers for Ohio’s lead demonstration STEM school. Her success in melding public school open enrollment, rigorous problem-based learning and early college access produced a senior class where 59% completed their high school requirements by their third year and are now enrolled in 5-18 credits per quarter in university courses carrying an average grade point of 3.86. Raymond received her Masters in Education at the Ohio State University.

Dennis Aig oversees all of PAST’s Documentation Programs. Aig, a tenured professor at Montana State University and the head of the Media and Theatre Arts Program works closely with PAST providing both quality podcasts and training programs for both collegiate and high schools students.

Adding to his impressive list of production and direction credits for both documentary and dramatic films, Aig led the PAST documentary team in 2004 and was awarded Montana State University’s prestigious Charles and Nora L. Wiley for his work.

A PhD from The Ohio State University with advanced work in English and film, Aig strives to change the face of documentary film partnerships on scientific projects around the world.

Monica Hunter leads all PAST ethnographic studies. As a leading small community ethnographer, Hunter joined PAST bringing insight and understanding to the underlying systems of STEM educational reform. Using ethnographic methods Dr. Hunter led the interdisciplinary anthropology and policy research team that published the Metro High School: An Emerging STEM Community study in 2008. Since then she has led teams studying the emerging systems and infrastructure of STEM in Ohio, Texas and North Carolina and New York. Dr. Hunter received her doctorate in Anthropology from University of California, Los Angeles.

Neal Bluel is part of the 3rd and 4th year science faculty cohort at Metro Early College and Demonstration High School. Bluel combines is love of horticulture, entrepreneurial background and enjoyment of teaching to bring exciting research programs to high school students. Blending his own doctoral research on transdisciplinary educational, delivery systems for STEM education with his high school courses, Bluel created Growing America that partners high school students with college students and the community to better understand the world of food from ‘seed to table.’ Bluel comes to Metro with a BS in Plant Science and a M.Ed. in Science Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Robert Church has a Masters of Arts degree in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University (ECU) and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in History with a minor in Biology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Prior to joining C&C Technologies in 1998, Church was employed as an underwater archaeologist by Tidewater Atlantic Research in Washington, North Carolina and a Diving Safety Officer at East Carolina University. He served as Chief Scientist for the 2004 Deep Wrecks Project. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing almost every aspect of the project, including planning, field operations, and facilitating communication between the various contractors, the Minerals Management Service, and Office of Ocean Exploration (NOAA). Church also was the principal investigator for the archaeological component of the project.

Church has written over 90 Archaeological Assessment Reports as Principal Archaeologist for marine surveys in the Gulf of Mexico. A few of these include reporting on the discovery and tentative identification of the tanker, Halo (2000), co-authoring, as principal investigator, the initial report of the discovery of the U-166 and investigation of the SS Robert E. Lee (2001), participating as co-principal investigator in the second U-166 archaeological field project (2003), and evaluating an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) site investigation of the freighter Alcoa Puritan (2002). He has also worked on a number of shipwreck excavations around the United States and abroad including the excavations of the seventeenth-century “Stone Wall” wreck in Bermuda (1995), the nineteenth-century French Frigate, L’Hermanie (1995), the Civil War gunboat CSS North Carolina (1997), and the Civil War Blockader USS Peterhoff (1998) to name a few.

Robert Church is a member of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the American Academy of Underwater Sciences, Southwestern Geological Society, and the Marine Technology Society. In 2002, Church and his colleague Daniel Warren were co-recipients of The Corporate Leadership Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service.

Melissa Conner has 30 years of archaeological experience and has worked in forensics for the last 10 years. Dr. Connor has exhumed human remains throughout the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Nigeria, and in Iraq in 2004. She teaches Forensic Archaeology and Forensic Anthropology.

Steve Dasovich is the Director of the Archaeology Program at Lindenwood University’s Anthropology & Sociology Department, and continues to teach archaeological field schools at the Daniel Boone Home in Defiance, Missouri. He was formerly the Head of the Cultural Resource Services Division for SCI Engineering, Inc., where he conducted compliance and other contract work in the fields of archaeology, architectural history, and history.

Dr. Dasovich has taught numerous courses for Florida State University and ran field schools in South Dakota for the University of Missouri. He has been conducting professional archaeological projects for over fifteen years in the Southeast, Midwest, and Great Plains. His top research interests and areas of expertise in archaeology include Great Plains hunter-gatherers and historic farmsteads, Civil War battlefields, underwater research techniques, and public archaeology.

Steve Dasovich is involved in public and professional organizations. He is a member of the Missouri Association of Professional Archaeologists Board of Directors and is the past president and legislative liaison, a member of the Development Committee for the Society for Historic Archaeology, the Board of Directors for the American Cultural Resources Association, and is a commissioner on the St. Louis County Historic Buildings Commission. Dasovich received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Dakota, his M.S. in Anthropology from Florida State University, and his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Missouri.

Keene Haywood has a MFA in Science and Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State University – Bozeman, a PhD in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.A. in Marine Affairs from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and a B.A. in Anthropology also from Miami. His Masters and Undergraduate degrees involved work in underwater archaeology. This background led to work with ROV’s and side-scan sonar to document wrecks in deepwater off Florida’s Atlantic coast. Dr. Haywood has also worked on several marine conservation projects related to coral reef preservation in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Florida Keys. He has also worked on various still and video/film projects mostly within the marine realm and has worked as a multimedia producer in Austin, Texas developing interactive media for educational purposes.

Lori Johnston is a microbial ecologist who was trained at the University of Regina and Royal Roads University, Victoria, British Columbia and has now specialized in environmental management of various corrosion and biofouling problems in the water, gas, and oil sectors. Extreme environments have also interested Johnston. She has been on expeditions to the RMS Titanic (1996, 1998, 2001, 2003), the DMK Bismarck (2002) and the mid-Atlantic ocean ridge (2002), and dove to all three sites conducting scientific experiments some of which are still at the sites for long term studies. She has also actively participated in the 2003 HMHS Britannic Expedition in Greece and the U-166 Expedition in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2004, Johnston was on an expedition for seven wrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, in association with NOAA and Minerals Management Service, as well as the RMS Titanic, in which she examined the possible liniments surrounding the ship and the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

Wayne Lusardi works for the Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries as part of the NOAA/State partnership to manage submerged cultural resources located off Alpena. In November 2002, Lusardi became the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve’s Maritime Archaeologist. As their archaeologist, Lusardi is responsible for the research, documentation, preservation, and management of as many as 100 shipwrecks located in Thunder Bay. He is involved in all aspects of fieldwork, research, education, and outreach. As a state employee, he is also responsible for submerged cultural resources throughout Michigan.

Wayne Lusardi has an extensive background in underwater and terrestrial archaeology, artifact conservation, and material culture studies. Before arriving at Thunder Bay, Lusardi was employed as an archaeological conservation for the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. He led the museum’s excavation of the USS Monitor’s turret after its recovery in August 2002. Prior to working on the Monitor project, he spent four years on the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck project in North Carolina. Lusardi also worked as an archaeologist for Tidewater Atlantic Research, Texas A&M University, and the Illinois State Museum. He received his M.A. in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University in 1998 and a B.S. in Anthropology from Illinois State.

Rory Matthews is a designer and design consultant, specializing in interactive media for museums, art galleries, and other collections. Based in Brighton, England, Matthews works internationally and has designed or art directed dozens of new media projects ranging in scale from small websites to some of the largest and most ambitious public kiosk installations and electronic publications yet built. He has specialized in this field since 1989.

Projects include public touchscreen installations and the website for the British Royal Collection, the multi-lingual website www.discovernikkei.org, and the award-winning DVD-ROM “The Magical Worlds of Joseph Cornell.” Recently, he became the design director for the website of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio.

Rory Matthews’ website www.rorym.com features a selection of projects, with screenshots and links.

Meghan Rector is a doctoral candidate at The Ohio State University in Biology. Blending her doctoral research on the tensile strength of spider web with her graduate assistant assignment to the Metro High School, Rector created a summer bridge program that explores the environment of caves and the impact humans have on them. Her program has reached students from throughout Ohio and will soon be published so that educatiors nationally can utilize her integrated, outdoor classroom approach. She has a BA degree in Biology from Alma College in Alma, Michigan and is currently working on her PhD in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University.

Nathan Richards specializes in nautical archaeology, archaeological theory, and is a specialist in watercraft discard and cultural site formation processes of the archaeological record. Richards has an interest in non-traditional subjects in maritime archaeology focusing on non-shipwreck sites such as ship graveyards, the archaeology of harbor infrastructure, submerged indigenous sites, and maritime terrestrial sites. He has been involved in a number of field schools run by Departments of Archaeology at Flinders University (South Australia), and James Cook University (Queensland), and has been employed in cultural resource management work by the State Governments of South Australia and Tasmania. Dr. Richards research has appeared in the Bulletin of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, The Great Circle (The Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History), and The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology as well as a number of other journal articles, book chapters, and numerous reports. He is co-author, with Robyn Hartell, of The Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail (2001).

Matthew Russell has been an archaeologist with the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center (SRC) since 1993. Russell has an M.A. in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 1993, he has participated in or directed more than 30 projects in national park areas and for state, federal, and international agencies. Russell was Deputy Field Director for the H. L. Hunley Recovery Project in 2000 and is Project Director for the USS Arizona Preservation Project. He has been a member of Society for Historical Archaeology since 1992 and is past-Chair of their UNESCO Committee. Russell is Chair of the Advisory Council for Underwater Archaeology (ACUA). In addition to a variety of monographs on SRC’s work in national parks, Russell has published in Historical Archaeology, Journal of Field Archaeology, and International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.  He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley where he is integrating maritime and terrestrial archaeology into a synthetic collaboration to examine culture contact between the shipwrecked crew of a Spanish Manila Galleon and indigenous Coast Miwok in Point Reyes, California in 1595.

Dan Warren is a marine archaeologist for C&C Technologies, Inc where he conducts marine archaeological and hazard assessments for gas, oil, and submarine cable surveys around the world, as well as terrestrial cultural resources surveys. Prior to working for C&C, he was employed as an archaeological field technician by the Missouri Department of Transportation in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Dan Warren has a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with a minor in History from the University of Illinois at Champaign – Urbana and a Masters degree in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University. Warren has been employed as a professional archaeologist for over 17 years. In that time he has worked on nautical archaeology projects in the United States, Bermuda, and Australia as well as numerous terrestrial archaeology projects throughout the United States. He is also a member of the Marine Technology Society.

Andrew Weir started working part-time for Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group (CCRG) when he was sixteen. In 1998, he received his Bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in Anthropology and Comparative Religion. After graduation, Weir was hired full-time. In 2000, Weir decided to pursue a different angle in archaeology; he enrolled in the Maritime History Masters program at East Carolina University, where he concentrated on Maritime Archaeology. After completing the program at ECU, he returned to CCRG and has since been trying to get the company more involved with Maritime Archaeology in the Great Lakes. Weir is currently working as a Project Archaeologist and the Marketing Coordinator for CCRG.