Weld, Jeff: - Jeff Weld, Ph.D. is Executive Director for the Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council, a post he's occupied since its launch in 2011. Additionally, Jeff recently completed 21 months of national service as STEM Education Policy Consultant for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to lead the production of America's Strategic Plan for STEM Education, published on December 4, 2018. His 2021 memoir, Charting a Course for American Education...from out on a limb at the executive branch recounts that experience. Jeff's 2017 book "Creating a STEM Culture for Teaching and Learning" (NSTA Press) informed the national plan by comprehensively examining all aspects of the U.S. STEM movement, highlighting best practices and lessons learned. In 2014, the Triangle Coalition bestowed upon Jeff the STEM Champion award, and in 2013 the University of Iowa recognized Weld with the College of Education's Alumni Accomplishment Honor. He is on extended leave from a faculty position in the Department of Biology at the University of Northern Iowa, where he published the popular textbook "The Game of Science Education" (Allyn & Bacon), authored cores of peer-reviewed research articles, essays, and book chapters on science education research and policy, conducted faculty professional development on content integration, and trained future science teachers and naturalists. In 2007 Jeff was named National Collegiate Biology Teacher of The Year by the NABT. A decorated secondary science teacher through the 1990's, Jeff was Life Science Teacher of the Year in Iowa, Pella Corporation's Focus on Teaching Excellence award recipient, and a National Access Excellence Fellow of the Genentech Corporation. Today and for now anyway, his teaching is limited to new tricks taught to the family dog, Rico Fermi.