Thank you to Dr. Jaeson Clayborn, Assistant Professor in biology at Miami Dade College Padrón Campus. He is Adjunct Professor at Florida International University from which he secured his PhD in Biological Sciences. He also has an MS in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of South Florida. His passion is education and research in conservation and sustainability. Clayborn’s professional life goals are to understand and preserve the entomological and botanical world, engage local communities through service-learning and inquiry-based activities, and empower people to become citizen scientists. His lecture on Butterfly World 1.0: A Virtual Gaming Experience can be viewed here.

Thanks also to Jordan Rogers, a senior at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. MSMS is a public residential high school for academically gifted and talented students, and it is a member of the National Consortium for Secondary STEM Schools (NCSSS). Jordan serves as a peer tutor, works with the math outreach program, and is heavily involved in the research program with Mississippi State University. Outside of school, she works as an editor/staff writer for The Vision and is a student in the IBM Quantum and MIT affiliate program, Qubit by Qubit. She has also showed interest in environmental conservation and the awareness of it through multiple projects. Jordan hopes for all people to have a greater understanding of human effects on the environments, so that further destruction can be prevented.