Contact Info & Project Team
Connecte²d Teaching is a unique education project that blends areas advanced structural engineering practices, testing
procedures, and modeling to create an engaging, but informative learning experience for middle grade students and teachers. Combining talent from the
University at Buffalo's engineering and education departments with that of local teachers, the project embraces both the theoretical and practical with the
fundamental objective of engaging students.
- Sofia Tangalos, MCEER Senior Program Officer
- Sofia served as project coordinator, information architect, and content editor.
- Deborah Moore-Russo, SUNY Buffalo Assistant Professor of Education
- Deborah developed and assisted with the pilot testing of the lesson plans, the architecture of the website, and the compilation of the E-resources.
- Gilberto Mosqueda, SUNY Buffalo Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering
- Gilberto coordinated the development of the simulation engine and shake table activities for the earthquake engineering design portion of the
project.
- Bill Garlapo, Mill Middle School earth science teacher
- Bill contributed numerous suggestions during the development of the lesson plans and piloted the lessons in two of his classes.
- Elaine Nieman, Buffalo Academy of Science middle school mathematics teacher
- Elaine piloted many of the lessons in her classroom, providing the team with practical application data which was used to enhance the lesson plans.
- Mark Rivard, Lewiston-Porter Middle School technology teacher
- Mark offered invaluable input during the content creation phase and hosted the first classroom project and demonstration.
- Kristina Rugg, Department of Education MED candidate
- Kristina created and edited the lesson plans, participated in classroom observations and assisted with the e-Resources database.
- Mehdi Ahmadizadeh, Department of Civil Engineering PhD candidate
- Mehdi created the computer model of the five-story building, then conducted numerous tests to generate data used for the earthquake simulator.
- Amit Sharma, Database Developer/Programmer
- Amit developed both the earthquake simulation and the e-Resources databases of the website, in addition to handling the backend programming for the
Flash animation.
- Don Trainor, Flash Developer
- Don created the actionscript for the Flash animation, essentially bringing to life the scenes and artwork of the earthquake simulator.
- Dave Cavanaugh, Web Designer/Developer
- Dave developed the website and the Flash interface and edited, modified and expanded the content of both.