National Advisory Board

Edward F. Ahnert is the president of the ExxonMobil Foundation and manager of contributions for Exxon Corporation. Ahnert was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and attended public schools in Fort Worth and Lake Charles, Louisiana. He obtained a B.A. in English from Rice University in Houston and a Master of Public Affairs in International Relations from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He then joined the faculty of Tunghai University in Taiwan where he taught English and international politics. In 1973 he joined the Treasurers Department of Exxon Corporation in New York and between 1973 and 1986 held various positions in the treasurers and corporate planning functions in New York, Houston, Sydney, Australia, and Hong Kong. In 1986 he left Exxon to help found and become the chief financial officer of a small Asian regional telecommunications company based in Hong Kong. In 1988 he founded and became the chief executive officer of an Asian venture capital fund affiliated with a Hong Kong investment 

In August 1990, Ahnert returned to the United States and to Exxon to head the ExxonMobil Foundation. In 1992 he also became manager of Exxon's corporate contributions activities. The ExxonMobil Education Foundation was established in 1955 and is the primary vehicle for Exxon Corporation's educational philanthropy. The foundation currently has grant-making programs focusing on elementary and secondary school improvement including student demographics, school restructuring, and teacher education; mathematics education; and research and training (in scientific and technical disciplines).

Anna Caroline Ball is president and CEO of Ball Horticultural Company, an international corporation that includes Ball Seed Co., PanAmerican Seed Co., Vegmo Plant B.V., and Ball FloraPlant. Ball Horticultural is the world's largest company specializing in all aspects of horticulture, including breeding, biotechnology, production, and marketing of hybrid flower seeds and other flociculture crops. Ball is a privately held company now in its third generation of family management. It has over 2,000 employees in 20 locations worldwide.

Ball received her B.A. degree from the University of Colorado and her M.B.A. from Northwestern University. She currently serves as a member of The Committee of 200, The Executive Committee (TEC), Young President's Organization (YPO), and The Chicago Network. She also serves on the Board of the Chicago Horticultural Society.

George R. Boggs is superintendent/president of Palomar College. He holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. in educational administration from The University of Texas at Austin, which awarded him its Distinguished Graduate Award. Boggs has served on the Boards of Directors of the California Association of Community Colleges, the Community College League of California, and the American Association of Community Colleges, serving as Board Chair in 1993/94. He is also a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education of the National Research Council and has served on several National Science Foundation panels. He has testified before both State legislative and Congressional committees on subjects related to higher education. Boggs received the Professional of the Year Award for Motivational Leadership from the Leadership Alliance, the Harry Buttimer Distinguished Administrators Award from the Association of California Community College Administrators, and the Pacific Region Chief Executive Officer Award from the Association of Community College Trustees.

Boggs is an active author, speaker, and consultant. His activities at the state and national level have brought recognition to Palomar College as a forward-looking, innovative, and outstanding institution of higher education.

Anthony Bryk is a professor in the Departments of Education and Sociology at the University of Chicago, with expertise on topics related to school organization, education reform, accountability, assessment, and educational statistics.  He is the Director of the Center for School Improvement at the University of Chicago, established eight years ago to support school improvement efforts within the Chicago Public Schools. The Center works with local schools on governance and leadership, literacy instruction, and social service support; it also analyzes local and system-wide policies.

Dr. Bryk is also the founding director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, a federation of Chicago-area research organizations that undertakes a range of studies designed to advance school improvement and assess the progress of Chicago school reform.   In addition, Dr. Bryk is a principal investigator in the Center for Research on the Education of Students at Risk at Johns-Hopkins and Howard Universities and is affiliated with the Consortium on Policy Research in Education.

Goéry Delacôte has been executive director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco since 1991. He holds a Ph.D. in solid state physics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and has been involved in science and science education since the outset of his career. In 1971 he launched the Laboratory for Research in Science Education and got the support from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

From 1982 to 1991, Delacôte was the Director of the Science and Technology Information Division of the CNRS.  He was responsible for the creation, design, and implementation of the French National Institute for Scientific Information (INIST) based in Nancy, France, a new, highly computerized scientific information document delivery and databank center, and INIST Diffusion, the trade company representing INIST products, publications, and services. Delacôte oversaw the design, construction, and completion of the main INIST library facility in Nancy.

Delacôte is professor of physics at the University of Paris, currently on leave. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bibliothèque de France and the new National Library of France (1989-1993) and has recently been nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Education. Delacôte has been a Board Member of the Genentech Foundation since 1993 and has also recently agreed to serve as a member of the Technical Education Research Center (TERC) Education Advisory Board.

Eugene M. DeLoatch became the first dean of the Morgan State University School of Engineering on July 1, 1984. Prior to his appointment, DeLoatch was professor and chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Howard University where he had been affiliated for twenty-four years.

DeLoatch completed his secondary education in the public schools of Piermont, New York, and then attended Tougaloo College in Mississippi. In a dual degree program, he earned a B.S. degree in mathematics from Tougaloo and a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. He earned an M.S. in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in bioengineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in New York. DeLoatch taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has conducted sponsored research for agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the National Cancer Institute. His industrial experiences include consulting with the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, the IBM Corporation, and the Whirlpool Corporation.

DeLoatch is a member of the Advisory Committees for the Division of Science Resources Studies and Biological and Critical Systems Division of the National Science Foundation, the Executive Board of the Public Affairs Council of the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES), and the Engineering Pipeline Issues Committee of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Susan Fuhrman is the dean and George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania.  She is also director of the Management Committee of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE). CPRE conducts research on state and local education policies and finance, bringing together researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the UW-Madison.  CPRE receives significant funding from the Office of Eductional Research and Improvement of the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Fuhrman has written widely on education policy and finance.  Among her edited books are Designing Coherent Education Policy: Improving the System, and Rewards and Reform: Creating Educational Incentives That Work (co-edited with Jennifer O'Day).  She serves on the National Research Council's Committee on Education Finance, the Policy Council of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the Congressionally mandated Independent Review Panel for Title I.  She also serves on the editorial boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Education Policy.  Her research interests include policy design and intergovernmental relationships.

Manuel Gómez is professor of physics at the University of Puerto Rico and director of its Resource Center for Science and Engineering, an NSF-sponsored center. He received his B.S. with a physics major and mathematics minor from the University of Puerto Rico and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell University. Since 1986 he has served as director of the Puerto Rico EPSCoR Program. Gómez is the Director of the Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) Project and of the Puerto Rico Statewide Systemic Initiative Project.

Since 1994, he has served as a member of the Secretariat of the Education Reform Commission and of the Energy Advisory Committee of the Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In addition, he is a member of the Governor's Economic Productivity Council representing science and technology and of the Coordinating Council for Education (CCE) of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

Susan L. Graham is a professor of computer science in UC Berkeley's department of electrical engineering and computer sciences. She received her A.B. in mathematics from Radcliffe College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Graham was the founding editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems. She is currently a member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, the NSF Advisory Committee for the Mathematics and Physical Science Directorate, the California Institute of Technology Visiting Committee for the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, and the MIT Visiting Committee for the Department of Electrical and Computer Sciences.

Graham's primary technical interests are in the design and implementation of programming languages and the development of interactive environments for software development. Her research on interactive environments includes the Pan language-based editing system and the Ensemble language and document system. She leads the Titanium project to investigate compiler and language support of explicitly parallel programs.

Wilfred A. Kenney, Jr., has been program manager for Western Hemisphere Integrated Supply of The Document Company, Xerox, since 1978. He earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering (structural mechanics) from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and an M.S. in business (finance) from UCLA.

Wilfred Kenney has 38 years in the industrial sector. From 1958 to 1976 he was project engineer and a member of the technical staff at the Rockwell Corporation in El Segundo, California. Kenney served as a stress analyst for Textron, Inc., in Fort Worth, Texas, from 1976 to 1978.

His special skills are in leadership through quality training and multinational logistics management and planning. He is Xerox liaison manager for Howard University School of Engineering.

Marcia C. Linn is a professor at University of California, Berkeley and served as chair of the Cognition and Development Area. Linn has also served as Principal Investigator at Lawrence Hall of Science; Fulbright Professor, Weizmann Institute, Israel; Visiting Professor, Stanford University; and Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.  She received a Distinguished Research Career Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching in 1994, a Berkeley Alumni Association Faculty Recognition Award in 1992, and a Willystine Goodsell Award from the American Educational Research Association in 1991 and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents' first award in Science Education in 1998.  

Gene I. Maeroff is director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he has been since 1997. Previously, he was a senior fellow with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the national education correspondent for the New York Times.

He is the author of several books.  In 1998, his book Altered Destinies: Making Life Better for Schoolchildren in Need was published by St. Martin's Press.   Also in 1998, he was the editor of Imaging Education: The Media and Schools in America, published by Teachers College Press.  He was a coauthor in 1997 of Scholarship Assessed: Evaluating the Professoriate, published by Jossey-Bass.

Dean Nafziger, Senior Vice President, Sylvan Teachers Institute, joined Sylvan in August of 1998 to lead the development of a new line of business in initial teacher certification. Prior to joining Sylvan, Nafziger was Executive Vice President at The Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, New Jersey. At ETS his primary focus was developing and building ETS’s strategic directions: Higher Education Testing, Education and Career Planning, and Teaching and Learning. Before ETS, Dean was Chief Executive Officer of WestEd, a non-profit company whose mission is to provide educators better access to the best practices and resources.

From 1983 to 1987, Nafziger served as assistant to the superintendent of the San Diego City Schools, the seventh largest school district in the country. Prior to that, he was Director of the Division of Evaluation, Research and Assessment at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Oregon. He previously served as an associate research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for the Social Organization of Schools and as a teacher of mathematics in the Boise Independent Schools. Dean holds a Ph. D. in Educational Administration and Research from New Mexico State University.

John W. Porter was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 13, 1931. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Albion College, a Master of Arts degree in counseling and guidance and a Ph.D. in higher education administration, both from Michigan State University.

Porter was unanimously elected state superintendent of public instruction by the Michigan State Board of Education in October 1969. At the age of 38, he was the nation's youngest chief state school officer and its first black state school superintendent. During his 10-year term as head of Michigan's Department of Education, Porter implemented numerous educational programs including the "Six Step Accountability Model," which he designed, and the concept of the "Educational Health Check-up." He is a leading supporter of vocational rehabilitation and disability determination and has served as a national spokesperson for retraining school staffs.

In 1979 Porter went to Eastern Michigan University as the institution's seventeenth president. He introduced the Decade of Advancement, which revitalized the troubled University. In May 1989, Porter agreed to serve as the General Superintendent for the Detroit Public Schools for a two-year period. Earlier that year Porter had joined the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as Vice President and also became the Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Education Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit that assists urban districts increase student achievement and improve school effectiveness.

F. James Rutherford is chief education officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Director of Project 2061. He was educated in the California public schools and earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and Harvard University.

Rutherford was appointed by President Carter to be assistant director of the National Science Foundation responsible for all science, mathematics, and engineering education programs, preschool through postdoctoral, and for federal programs fostering the public understanding of science programs. When the new U.S. Department of Education was launched, he was appointed first assistant secretary for research and improvement with responsibility for the National Institute of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the federal programs supporting libraries and the development of education technologies. Earlier, as a professor of science education at Harvard University and New York University and a high school science teacher in California he directed several major projects, including Harvard Project Physics, and served as president of the National Science Teachers Association.

At AAAS, he has been responsible for such national initiatives as Science Resources for Schools and the National Forum for School Science and for such publications as Science Education News and Science Education in Global Perspective. As initiator and director of Project 2061, Rutherford heads the nation's most prominent long-term comprehensive effort to foster nationwide reform in science, mathematics, and technology education.

Bonita Talbot-Wylie has been an educator for 28 years in the Minnetonka (MN) School District. She holds an undergraduate degree in elementary education from St. Cloud State University and a master's from the University of St. Thomas. Talbot-Wylie's commitment has been to academic excellence with an emphasis on sciences, recognizing the special needs of girls and women. Her leadership roles have been on local, state and national science organizations' boards of directors and advisory boards and in writing science-related articles in such magazines as the NAESP Principal as well as serving on the publication review panel for Science and Children. She served as the national president of the Society of Elementary Presidential Awardees. She holds life memberships in NSTA and NEA, serving these national organizations in many capacities as well as state organizations. Talbot-Wylie conducts an annual nationwide search for best lessons for Council for Elementary Science International. Working at the state department of education last year allowed her to work on the new Minnesota Graduation Rule and organize a statewide Best Practices Network.

Talbot-Wylie received the Presidential Award For Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching in 1990, the first year it was available for elementary educators. She is now the Minnesota Presidential Awards' Coordinator.

William Vélez earned all of his degrees from the University of Arizona, completing his doctoral degree in mathematics in 1975.  His research interests are in number theory and algebra.  He has held positions at various military laboratories where he has applied mathematics to solve problems that have arisen in military communication systems.  Vélez has served as a Program Officer at the National Science Foundation, where he directed the Algebra and Number Theory Program in 1992-93.  He served as president of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science from 1994 to 1996. Vélez is Director of the NSF-funded Southwest Regional Institute in the Mathematical Sciences.  In 1997, Vélez was one of the recipients of the President's Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring Program.  This award came with a $10,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.