Francesca has nine years of experience in student development, scientific education, and community outreach. Before working at CCNY, Francesca was a Program Director at BioBus, a nonprofit organization for science outreach and education based in New York City.
She has traveled all around the City onboard the BioBus mobile laboratories, meeting students, teachers, and parents, and listening to their stories. Francesca completed her undergraduate education in molecular biology at the University of Padua in Italy and pursued graduate training at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Paris, working on neurophotonics.
She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience and optics from the University Paris Descartes and then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. Francesca hopes to help shape the next generation of innovators and citizens, aware and proud of the environment they live in, eager to observe reality firsthand, challenge common knowledge, and formulate their own original ideas to shape the world around them into a better place for everyone to share.
Email: fanselmi@ccny.cuny.edu
Christine has spent the last decade building programs to support students historically excluded from STEM in accessing opportunities to explore their interests and gain research experiences to start them on their path. After seven years working in international wildlife conservation, she changed gears and launched the NYC Science Research Mentoring Consortium at the American Museum of Natural History, where she helped increase the number of high school research opportunities available to low income and minoritized students across NYC, growing from AMNH’s 60 students to more than 500 student researchers per year across 25+ programs.
She built support networks for programs and practitioners, created the college readiness program for high school students in AMNH programs, delivered student professional development sessions, developed and conducted mentor trainings, created partnerships with schools and non-profits, and researched the longitudinal impacts of programs. Joining CCNY in early 2019, she has managed the programs under CiPASS’ US Department of Education grants, working to expand opportunities and support for CCNY’s STEM students.
Christine has a B.S. from Cornell University in Natural Resources Management and a master’s in Conservation Biology from Columbia University.
ccalderon@ccny.cuny.edu