Christa Krohn, Keynote Speaker
Christa Krohn serves as the Senior Director of Learning Systems at TIES Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM, leveraging over two decades of educational experience where she taught both math and physics. Her diverse background encompasses roles as a teacher, adjunct college professor, and curriculum and instruction specialist. In addition to teaching, she holds licenses in curriculum instruction and professional development.
Her experience at MC2 STEM school in Cleveland, where she wrote curriculum and helped develop a model for PBL and capstone project planning, also extends to the Ohio Department of Education, Innovation Lab Network, Stanford University’s Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE), and Envision Learning Partners. She has worked to integrate performance assessments and competency-based education into Ohio’s practices. She enjoys collaborating with educators, districts, and policymakers to reimagine current educational practices and systems to help transform educational models into dynamic, inclusive practices designed to reach all learners. Always searching for innovative methods to increase STEM learning, Christa is an early believer in the benefits of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to reach an even greater population and she contributed to the recently released AI Education Toolkit for Ohio educators.
Christa has served as an elected member of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM) board and currently serves as the Executive Director of Learning Forward Ohio
Dr. Stuart Henderson, Guest Speaker
Stuart Henderson has served as the Director of Jefferson Lab, a world-leader in nuclear physics research, since April 3, 2017. Jefferson Lab features the first large-scale superconducting accelerator that enables the research of more than 1,800 nuclear physicists worldwide. He also serves as a Governor's Distinguished CEBAF Professor at Old Dominion University.
As laboratory director, Henderson provides the vision for the lab’s operations and future. He sets laboratory policy and program direction; procures
sufficient funding for optimal operation; oversees the successful delivery of its research programs; and ensures that Jefferson Lab complies with all regulations and laws and fulfills its contractual obligations.
Henderson is an internationally recognized expert in particle accelerators. Prior to joining Jefferson Lab, Henderson served as the Director of the Advanced Photon Source Upgrade Project, where he led the effort to design and build a 4th-generation synchrotron light source that will produce the world’s brightest hard x-rays.
Previously, Henderson served as Associate Laboratory Director for Accelerators at Fermilab and managed the laboratory’s accelerator research, development, construction and operations activities. He also spent nearly a decade at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), where he played key roles in constructing and commissioning the world’s most powerful accelerator-based neutron science user facility. As the Director of the Laboratory’s Research Accelerator Division, Henderson led the SNS beam commissioning campaign and transition to successful user operations at megawatt beam power levels. He worked at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) from 1991 to 2001, first as a research fellow with Harvard University, and then as a Cornell research staff member.
