Dr. Heather A. Fischer is a senior researcher at the STEM Research Center. Before coming to the center in July 2018, Heather completed a Ph.D. in Geography at Arizona State University in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Currently Heather is working on multiple NASA, NSF, and USDA-funded projects and is partnering with researchers internal to OSU (including the Oregon Bee Atlas) and external (including with NASA and SciStarter).

Heather’s research interests include data quality of volunteer-collected data, developing citizen science and informal learning programs with diverse groups of participants, evaluating the use of citizen science data for scientific research, and open access to volunteer collected data. Heather is also working on projects related to workforce development through experiential learning, focused on STEM education programs that teach essential skills. Heather has particular expertise in geographic information science, volunteered geographic information, and social science and program evaluation methodologies.

Projects:

• Aurorasaurus (2023-2025)
• BEETLES: Broad Implementation of a Professional Learning Model for Outdoor Science Programs (2017-2022)
• Convergence Accelerator Phase I (RAISE): Analytics-Driven Accessible Pathways To Impacts-Validated Education (ADAPTIVE) (2019-2020)
• Developing Integrative Manufacturing and Production Engineering Curricula That Leverage Data Science (IMPEL) (2019-2022)
• L'SPACE (2019-2025)
• NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC) (2018-2025)
• The Circuit: A Platform for Increasing Access to, Deepening and Researching Patterns of Family and Adult Participation in Informal Science (2019-2023)

See Heather's full publications list here.