Position: Director of education and outreach for the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS)

Length of service: At Rutgers since 1994, director of education and outreach since 2001

Hometown: Raised in Howell Township, Monmouth County; lives in Cranbury Township, Middlesex County

What she does: McDonnell sees herself as a bridge between scientists and the rest of the world. She plans and implements educational programs to increase “ocean literacy” and helps scientists explain to the public what they do and why it’s important. Her programs range from traveling presentations for school children and summer workshops for their teachers to a class for marine science students on “communicating ocean science.”

The best part of her job: “There is no such thing as a typical day,” McDonnell says. Her day might involve anything from traveling to Washington, D.C., to discuss national ocean literacy and education policy with colleagues from the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (the National Science Foundation’s ocean-science outreach program) to introducing elementary school students to the wonders of a “touch tank, a portable cooler full of small ocean critters, such as sea stars and hermit crabs, that McDonnell displays at schools and summer day camps. “It allows the children to touch the ocean and the beach,” McDonnell says. “Some of these kids come from tough neighborhoods; the beach may be 40 miles away, but it’s as if it were another planet. The hermit crabs and sea stars are completely new to them.” 

Riding the ocean literacy shuttle: McDonnell’s official office is in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences on Dudley Road in New Brunswick, but she spends a lot of time shuttling between that office and the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve in Tuckerton. Rutgers manages the reserve, and McDonnell uses its resources to bring her scientists and teachers together.

Getting started: McDonnell graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in biology, then received a master’s degree from Old Dominion University in Virginia, specializing in benthic ecology – that is, the ecology of the ocean bottom. But she was already headed for teaching, rather than research, in her undergraduate days. A mentor, Richard Cooper, director of the National Estuarine Research Center at Avery Point in Groton, Conn., convinced her to go into education. “Teaching was reinforced by my experiences in graduate school,” McDonnell said. “I found it challenging and fun to work with students who did not love science the way I did.” She arrived at Rutgers in 1994, just as the IMCS was getting started, and has directed the outreach and education effort since 1996.

Challenges of the job: McDonnell must find new ways to bring classroom educators into the physical and mental world of marine scientists and encourage marine scientists to interact with classroom educators. “Teachers are open, accepting people in my experience, and they’re always grateful for any help you can give them,” she said. “You just have to find the right teacher, the right administrator or superintendent, to make an impact on a school or district. Scientists are harder. They run the gamut from people who can’t wait to interact with teachers to people who feel sincerely that their job is to do science – period.” She is excited about the alliances she’s built, particularly the ongoing collaboration with the Liberty Science Center. The science center is now closed for renovation, but when it opens next year, there will be lots of contributions from the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Recent honors: McDonnell is the recipient of he National Marine Educators Association’s 2006 James Centorino Award for distinguished service in education outside of the classroom. In addition, she is an integral member of Rutgers’ Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (otherwise known as “RU COOL) – one of six university teams presented this month with a presidential Excellence in Service award.