Ruth Krumhansl

Ruth Krumhansl is an expert in curriculum development, education research, earth science, science teaching, and applied science. Her work has a special focus on the design of Internet-based tools that bring authentic scientific data into K–16 classrooms. Krumhansl leads research that is advancing the field's knowledge of how students learn to work with data and is drawing upon findings to design innovative instructional resources that help teachers foster students’ data literacy, build their capacity to work with complex datasets, and support their mastery of essential tools and techniques. She is the principal investigator of the NSF-funded Ocean Tracks College Edition study. She is lead author of EDC Earth Science, a full-year earth science course for high school stressing rigorous, inquiry-oriented learning, which was published by LAB-AIDS in 2014. In collaboration with SRI International and NASA, she contributed to the design of websites that allow teachers to access NASA’s remotely sensed Earth observation mission data. Krumhansl is currently an advisor on the Streams of Data project. Before joining EDC, Krumhansl was a high school science teacher and department coordinator, a chief scientist and senior project manager in environmental consulting on Superfund sites, and a petroleum exploration geologist. Her career in applied science immersed her in the search for patterns in complex geospatial data, providing a foundation for her current interest and work in preparing students to live in a data-intensive world. She has a BA in Geology from Bucknell University and an MS in Environmental Science from Antioch New England Graduate School.