Viziscience® – Interactive & Visual Learning for Chemistry
Margaret Summers
Founder
Margaret earned her degree in Civil Engineering from Loughborough University, UK, before embarking on a career in computer programming. She found great satisfaction in troubleshooting and designing computer solutions. Margaret’s path shifted toward Chemistry education when her daughter encountered difficulties with challenging chemistry concepts in high school. Margaret was inspired to start the project Viziscience after witnessing how the use of visuals and interactive methods greatly helped her daughter’s learning. She believed that other students could benefit from these innovative approaches.
Recognizing our key contributors
A number of people have been instrumental to the development of Viziscience® and we are very thankful for their skills, knowledge, insight and hard work that has been invaluable getting the project to where it is now.
Dr. Cristina Mottillo
Cristina Mottillo is a post-doctoral researcher at McGill University in the laboratory of Prof. Tomislav Friščić, where she obtained her PhD in 2016, and also co-founder of the spin-off company ACSYNAM. She was awarded the 2017 CUCC Doctoral Award for the best chemistry PhD thesis in Canada. Her research includes exploring solid-state reactivity for producing porous metal-organic materials.
Dr. Paul Stanish
Paul obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Nanotechnology from the University of Waterloo, and a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Nanotechnology from Carleton University.
Andrew Fletcher
Andrew graduated from Hamilton College with a B.A. in chemistry in 2017, and from Colorado School of Mines with an M.S. in nuclear science & engineering in 2019. He’s been teaching and tutoring chemistry since high school, when he was the top first-year chemistry student in southwest Connecticut. During undergrad, he became interested in nuclear chemistry and continued studying it during grad school. His master’s thesis was on the chemistry of trivalent f-elements, including both lanthanides and actinides up to Californium (Z=98).
Ryan Heck
Ryan Heck has extensive experience working in scientific research as well as teaching scientific concepts to students. He has a B.S. in chemistry and biology and is passionate about making science understandable and exciting for everyone.
Brandon Hubacher
Brandon is a student at The University of Texas at Austin class of 2022 studying for a career in bioinformatics and more generally software engineering. He enjoys playing the saxophone and is part of the Longhorn marching band.
Our Approach
Viziscience® was designed to support the teaching of key concepts and help underpin curriculum topics in an engaging, structured and effective way. We believe that an interactive approach of “show” rather than “tell” will help many students master science concepts and topics that too often seem harder than they really are.
Technology
One of our objectives was to provide intuitive learning solutions where students don’t have to spend time figuring out how to operate the package, but instead spend all their time exploring and learning. We wanted to make the learning process feel natural and at the same time be integrated with technology in order to foster a proactive learning approach whilst encouraging students to take ownership of their learning process.
Our Community
Many teachers and students have been involved in our journey and their input has been crucial to help shape the Viziscience® platform. We are very grateful for their help, suggestions and ideas that continue to inspire us in the project. We want to continue our vision to provide innovative STEM education solutions for both students and teachers.
