Jack Barbera is an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University
(http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jlb565/index.html ).  His interest in using computers to teach chemistry came from his graduate studies at the University of Colorado where he worked on various aspects of the Physics Education Technology (PhET) project (http://phet.colorado.edu/index.php ).  Jack’s group now develops and tests interactive learning materials based on several of the PhET simulations.  In addition to the groups work with the simulations, they also study students’ epistemological beliefs about chemistry using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS-Chem, http://www.colorado.edu/sei/class/ ), which was developed and validated as part of Jack’s doctoral degree.

Dr. Kelly first became interested in animations while teaching high school chemistry and working toward her master’s degree in science education. For her thesis she studied how an animation of the crushing can demonstration affected student’s understanding of the particulate nature of matter.  She then went on to earn her master’s in chemistry and doctorate in chemical education and studied how undergraduate General Chemistry students’ explanations of sodium chloride dissolution were affected by viewing two animations depicting the molecular level process of salt dissolution.  Dr. Kelly currently teaches general chemistry and teacher preparation courses at San José State University where she strives to incorporate still images and animations that emphasize the particulate nature of matter, and her research interests involve developing effective molecular level animations and studying how these animations affect students' explanations. Please see the link to her faculty page. http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty_and_staff/faculty_detail.jsp?id=1082