PROJECT EXPLORATION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS FELLOWSHIP

The Trust Fellowship is a significant investment in the leadership talent for nonprofit organizations and is designed to elevate the careers of Chicago leaders and increase their future impact on the Chicago metropolitan area. Lyon is one of three experienced fellows chosen for this inaugural program.

“I am extremely honored to receive this award,” Lyon said. “It affords me an important opportunity to try to understand how Project Exploration’s work fits into the national conversation about science education and to forge relationships locally and nationally that will help us refine our model and take our work to the next level.” Lyon will use funds from the Fellowship to visit science and education sites around the country and to work towards a doctoral dissertation in education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Ms. Lyon has played a leadership role via Project Exploration in bringing the joy of science to the young scientists-to-be of our city,” said Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, who has been a supporter of Project Exploration for many years. “Thanks to our new national leadership promoting science, the public will require ever more demonstrations of the power of science to enrich our economy and our culture.”

Project Exploration is a nonprofit science education organization that develops and implements programs to ensure underserved communities—particularly minority youth and girls—have access to state-of-the-art science education, regardless of academic achievement. Students work with real scientists to solve real problems in a dynamic, interactive way. This hands-on programming changes the lives of hundreds of students each year and is a model for out-of-school time science. The full content of the Chicago Community Trust’s press release can be found at www.cct.org.

About Gabrielle Lyon
As Executive Director, Gabrielle Lyon leads Project Exploration to fulfill its mission and champions the belief that science can and should be accessible to everyone, especially to those to whom it traditionally has been closed. Lyon developed and implemented Project Exploration’s original youth, teacher and online programs and continues to spearhead new program initiatives. She has led two strategic planning processes and established the organization's innovative earned revenue business plan.

Prior to founding Project Exploration, Lyon served as the director of the School Change Institute at the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project. Lyon has represented the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations and addressed the U.N. Subcommittee on Human Rights. In addition, she has participated in seven international paleontology expeditions and discovered the African dinosaur Deltadromeus. Lyon received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Chicago and is working on her PhD in education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

About Project Exploration
Project Exploration's highly personalized science immersion programs, fieldwork, and youth development initiatives significantly increase high school graduation rates among students from economically disadvantaged communities: over 95% of Project Exploration fieldwork participants graduate from high school. These students are three times more likely to enroll in a four-year college than their peers, and over two thirds of Project Exploration field alumni major in science once in college. At a time when four out of five jobs require science and technology skills, Project Exploration provides a new model for engaging and retaining today’s youth in science and technology.

Press Contact:
Laura Jansen
Project Exploration
Phone: (773) 834-7614
Email: ljansen@projectexploration.org

News release date: January 26, 2009