ABOUT US
DR. ÁUREA E. RODRÍGUEZ SANTIAGO
Founder/Director of Taller Ecológico de Puerto Rico
Áurea E. Rodríguez Santiago went to public schools and got her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (the State University), in Industrial Microbiology and Marine Sciences (MSMS and Ph.D.). During her graduate studies, and after, she has conducted work in the field of science education at different levels. Her beginnings in K-12 education occurred when she obtained a scholarship from the "National Science Foundation-Graduate Fellows in K-12 Education” (NSF-GFK-12) in which, she acquired skills in teacher’s education, focusing on science content. This project was followed by the NSF’s – Alliance for the Teaching of Science and Mathematics (ALACIMA, Spanish acronym), with the goal of enforcing teachers to bring constructivist science activities to their classrooms, with “hands-on" and project-based learning ("Project-based learning") approaches; she was part of ALACIMA’s team for 3 years. Afterward, she continued to work on teacher’s science education with various NSF projects, as well as for publishing houses and independent projects. At the university level, for the past 14 years, she has taught and has been a researcher at the University of PR in Río Piedras and Mayagüez, as well as at Hampton University, Virginia, and at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the latter is part of the University of Georgia, Athens. In 2017 she founded Taller Ecologico de Puerto Rico, an organization dedicated to Marine and Environmental Sciences Education, and Citizen Science. She also does private consulting on educational and scientific projects for agencies such as NOAA and Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER). Currently, she has a special appointment as a researcher at the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.
ROSNEL ALLENDE MERCADO
Administrative assistant
During her undergraduate studies she obtained an associate degree in accounting. She then continued her studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Ponce Campus where she obtained her bachelor's degree in K-6 Education. After completing her studies, she worked for several years with Rocket Learning where she offered tutoring in public schools in the country. A few years ago she joined Taller Ecológico de Puerto Rico offering administrative services and assistance during the workshops.
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