Alumna, Becky Gonda (A&S ‘11G), is also a current Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Outreach in the Dietrich School’s Department of Biological Sciences. Her outreach efforts include the Biology Department’s PittBio Outreach Program.
Gonda received her BA in Molecular Biology from Westminster College in 2004 and her PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011. She has been working for Pitt since 2013 where she started as a Middle School Outreach Coordinator.
The PittBio Outreach program was created to connect the science community with K-12 teachers and students. They offer several different programs including the Gene Team and Pitt Kits. The Gene Team is a summer program for high schoolers where students study bio-medical research programs. The program could become one of the first out-of-school educational programs to be accredited by the Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA-CESS). The Pitt Kits program provides science kits for workshops and experiments for K-12 students. There are around a dozen Pitt Kits to choose from, and they can also be tailored to specific classroom needs.