July 30, 2007

Discovery Park appoints director for K-12 science education efforts

Christian Foster
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His appointment to the newly created post is effective immediately, Alan H. Rebar, executive director of Discovery Park, announced Monday (July 30). Foster will report to Rebar, and his office will be in the Gerald D. and Edna E. Mann Hall, a $12.4 million Discovery Park building that opened on May 15.

Foster, who is the husband of new Purdue President France A. Córdova, will be responsible for the coordination, development and facilitation of K-12 opportunities that are linked to the many Discovery Park centers.

"Chris is an experienced science educator with more than 30 years of teaching and research to his credit," Rebar said. "He has served on several boards that work with science and engineering education. He's a natural fit to steer development of Discovery Park's programs in growing our research commitment to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education."

Alan Rebar
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Studies show that the number of engineers graduating from U.S. institutions has slipped 20 percent in recent years to fewer than 60,000 a year. By comparison, the number of engineers graduating annually in China has risen by 161 percent to more than 200,000. Japan and India each are graduating more than 100,000 engineers a year. If that trend persists, the National Science Foundation predicts that 90 percent of the world's scientists and engineers will live in Asia by 2010.

As a result, the Association of American Universities, in its 2005 report "National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative: Meeting America's Economic and Security Challenges in the 21st Century," is calling on this nation's leaders in higher education, industry and government policy to increase the number of U.S. scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians graduating from U.S. universities.

Of equal concern, a separate report by the National Assessment Governing Board indicated that more than 50 percent of U.S. students do not take any science classes in the 12th grade. Those who do take a science class rank below the average of their international counterparts, according to the Third International Math and Science Study.

"Purdue is an international leader in developing some of the brightest engineers and scientists in the world," Foster said. "We can build on that foundation to develop and research innovative ways to encourage learning in these critical areas and captivate the minds of students in grades K-12."

Discovery Park's Discovery Learning Center, for example, is working with several campus programs and collaborating with other universities to research innovative learning techniques in technical areas such as science and engineering.

Before coming to Purdue, Foster was director of Undergraduate Research and Student Professional Organization in the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. From 2002-07 he oversaw the development of an undergraduate research program that could serve as a model for the entire university.

Foster also served as the academic outreach coordinator in the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In that role, he developed and led a collegewide program of educational outreach and managed several other projects, including the regional directorship of the University of California Arts Bridge Program.  

Previously, as deputy assistant director for education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he led the establishment of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's White House Office for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment program, known as "GLOBE." The international, Internet-based, environmental science education program focuses on precollege students at more than 10,000 schools in 95 countries.

Foster holds a master's degree in science education from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. His bachelor's degree is in earth sciences from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. He completed all course requirements for the doctorate in science education at Pennsylvania State University but left that institution to pursue career opportunities before completing his dissertation.

Launched in 2001, Purdue's Discovery Park has grown into a $350 million interdisciplinary hub for research, bringing together more than 1,000 Purdue faculty and 2,500 university students to tackle solutions in areas ranging from health care, entrepreneurship, nanotechnology and life sciences to alternative energy, innovative learning techniques and climate change.

Writer: Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu

Sources: Alan Rebar, (765) 496-6625, rebar@purdue.edu

Christian Foster, (765) 494-2981, cjfoster@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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