Ronald K. Thornton (AB, Hamilton College; Ph.D., Brown University) is a former high energy physicist who now develops effective methods and materials for teaching science to students from the middle school through coll ege, teaches teachers and professors, and investigates student conceptual learning. As well as being the Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Teaching at Tufts University, he is also a Research Professor in the Physics and the Education Departments, and a former visiting professor in the Physics Departments of the Universities of Rome, Naples, and Pavia. He has been the chair of the National Committee on Research in Science Education of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). He directs a number of national and international projects which study student conceptual learning in science (with a strong emphasis on physics) and which design and introduce constructivist science curricula into schools and universities (e.g. the NSF funded Student-Oriented Science: Curricula, Techniques and Computer Tools for Interactive Learning, Foundations for Computer-Based Physics Instruction). He is a major author of the Tools for Scientific Thinking and RealTime Physics curricul a and of the microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) software. These hands-on, award-winning materials are designed to serve underprepared and underserved students as well as more traditional science majors. Prof. Thornton won the 1992 Smithsonian/Computerw orld Leadership Award in Science Education and the 1993 Charles A. Dana Foundation Award for Pioneering Achievements in Education (with P. Laws).

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