Dr. Shelly Rodriguez

Shelly is a associate professor of practice and Master Teacher with the UTeach Austin program. She has been with UTeach since 2008 and holds a PhD in Science Education from The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining UTeach, Shelly was a science teacher at Crockett High School in Austin ISD and received several teaching awards. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and was awarded the Outstanding Paper Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching in 2012. Shelly’s areas of expertise include facilitating professional learning communities, mentoring, maker education, cross cutting practices of the Next Generation Science Standards, and inquiry-based learning in science. Shelly helped to secure the most recent Robert Noyce Grant awarded to UTeach Austin and she is currently working to develop and establish the UTeach Maker initiative.

Jason Harron

Jason is a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin in the department of Curriculum and Instruction. He studies how digital technologies can be used to help students and teachers engage in creative endeavors and express themselves. He received his MM in Saxophone Performance and MBA in Strategic Management from the University of North Texas. Jason taught middle and high school business, digital media, and mathematics. He is currently researching the leadership role of establishing and sustaining makerspaces in K-12 education and how massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be used to enhance teacher pedagogical practices. Jason is a Graduate Research Assistant with UTeach Maker and also the recipient of the Alexander Caswell Ellis Fellowship in Education.

Dr. Jill Marshall

Dr. Jill A. Marshall is an associate professor of STEM Education. She studies how people come to understand and engineer the physical world and how teachers can facilitate that process, as well as equity issues in STEM education. She is Associate Director of the UTeach Natural Sciences teacher certification program and Past President of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She received her BS in Physics from Stanford University in 1980 and her PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984. She engaged in space science research for 10 years at Southwest Research Institute before becoming increasingly involved in outreach and education. She held a position focused on physics education research at Utah State University before returning to Texas in 2000. She has served on the Advisory Board for PhysTEC (Physics Teacher Education Coalition) and on the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics.

Michael DeGraff

Michael is the Instructional Program Coordinator at the UTeach Institute, which provides guidance and resources to ensure successful implementation and sustainability of UTeach programs nationwide. Michael has been a part of UTeach since 2001, first as an undergraduate student at UT Austin (BA Mathematics) then as a graduate student (MA Mathematics Education), and as clinical faculty with UKanTeach at the University of Kansas. In his current position at the UTeach Institute, Michael coordinates the Instruction Program Review process for all UTeach Partner Sites as well as supporting instructors in implementing the nine UTeach courses.

In addition to his responsibilities at the UTeach Institute, Michael has helped develop plans to offer a Maker Endorsement to interested pre-service teachers in the UTeach Austin program, in part, supported through a grant from NSF.