Staff

• Administration
• BioMedia
• Education & Instruction

• Lauren Correri
• Mary Lamont
• Valerie Meszaros
• David Micklos
• Karen Orzel
• Carolyn Reid

• Anthony Biondo
• Eun-sook Jeong
• Mohammed Khalfan
• Susan Lauter
• Sheldon McKay
• Amy Nisselle

• Christian Weidler
• Jason Williams
• Chun-hua Yang

• Elna Carrasco
• Antonia Florio
• Jennifer Galasso
• Natalia Hanson
• Melissa Lee
• Christine Marizzi

• Kathleen McAuley
• Amanda McBrien
• Erin McKechnie
• Bruce Nash
• Brooke Roeper
• Jermel Watkins

Brooke Roeper

High School Educator

I grew up in the woods of northeastern Ohio, collecting crayfish from rivers and splitting slate open in search of fossils. I always wanted to learn more about the natural world around me, so when I attended Kenyon College it was natural that I would pursue a degree in biology. During my studies I became especially interested in infectious diseases, specifically viruses, so after college I joined a research lab specializing in mosquito-borne viruses like West Nile Virus.

This research took me to New Orleans, where I pursued a Master of Science in Public Health in parasitology from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. I extended my West Nile Virus research to the Louisiana swamps, dodging alligators while collecting frogs from the wetlands to take back to the lab. I loved this melding of lab and field research, so when I finished my degree, I continued my graduate studies at Colorado State University, participating in hantavirus-monitoring research on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. While there, I earned an MS in ecology and began teaching the freshmen biology labs. With a newfound passion for education, I became a middle school science teacher, teaching life, earth, and environmental science in Wyoming while living in the South Dakota Black Hills.

While out west, I worked two seasons as a Park Ranger at Wind Cave National Park before relocating to Long Island. While it has been a long and winding road, I am very happy to be a part of the education team at the DNA Learning Center where we teach the next generations about the power and promise of genetics and molecular biology.