Faculty & Staff
Eric Bright teaches History for the Early Entrance Program’s Transition School. He received his MA in Modern European History from Arizona State University. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at the University of Washington and Lecturer in Modern European History at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. His primary field of specialization is Ancient Regime and Revolutionary France with secondary fields in modern European intellectual history and women’s and gender history. His research interests include revolutionary political culture, representations of revolutionary violence, and crisis as a motif in revolutionary discourse.
Kristy Carter is the Program Coordinator for Saturday and Summer Programs. She joined the Robinson Center in January 2010, coming from the Provost’s Office here at the UW. Her previous experience includes four years working for the World Affairs Council in Seattle and two years living and teaching English in Japan.
Sarah A. Childers is on leave for the 2011-2012 academic year. Sarah is an Assistant Director for Program Operations at the Robinson Center. She directed the UW Academy for Young Scholars from 2007-2011 and the Early Entrance Program from 2009-2011. She co-directed the Washington Search for Young Scholars from 2008-2009. Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology in the University of Washington College of Education. Her research interests include acceleration, collaborative learning and achievement motivation. Sarah received her MA in Women Studies from the University of Washington in 2006. After earning undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington, she taught middle school science and social studies and coached soccer as part of the North Carolina Teach for America corps. She joined the Robinson Center in 2004.
Jeramy Gee is a graduate student in the University of Washington’s Philosophy department where he is looking for a dissertation topic. Jeramy’s philosophical interests lie primarily in ethics, ancient philosophy, philosophy of science, and philosophy of religion. His other interests include all things outdoors, bow-making and archery, boxing, and medieval European martial systems. No stranger to education, Jeramy previously taught high school Biology and General Science and he is also an instructor for Summer Challenge.
Maren Halvorsen is the Associate Director of the Robinson Center. She directs the Early Entrance Program’s Transition School and also directs the Summer Programs (Summer Challenge and Summer Stretch). Dr. Halvorsen earned her undergraduate degree in History at the University of Oregon; she received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington in 2002 with a focus on Early Modern Europe, with special interest in medieval and early modern spirituality. She has taught numerous courses for the UW Department of History, ranging from introductory courses to advanced senior seminars. She joined the Robinson Center in 1990 as the Transition School’s History instructor, leaving that position in 2009 for her current position.
Ernest Henley is an Emeritus Professor of Physics and the co-instructor of Transition School Physics (since 1999). Professor Henley received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1952 and spent time at Stanford and Columbia Universities before coming to the University of Washington in 1954. At the UW Professor Henley was Chair of the Department of Physics (1973-1976) and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1979-1987), and he has served on numerous committees. Although he retired in 1994, Professor Henley has remained active in research (nuclear and particle physics) and has been both Director and Associate Director of the National Institute for Nuclear Theory. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the co-author of several physics books as well as numerous physics articles.
Dr. Nancy Hertzog is the Director of the Robinson Center. A Professor in the area of Educational Psychology at the University of Washington, Dr. Hertzog has an extensive background in gifted education and expertise on curriculum development. From 1995-2010 she held a faculty position in the Department of Special Education and directed University Primary School, an inclusive early childhood setting that serves children from preschool through first grade at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Hertzog has extensive experience training teachers in the project approach and has written web-based curricular guides that detail project investigations of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students that have won national recognition from the National Association for Gifted Children.
Dr. Hertzog’s research focuses on teachers’ implementation of the Project Approach in classrooms withboth high- and low-achieving children and with predominantly low income and African-American families. In addition to teaching courses in gifted education, Dr. Hertzog teaches methods courses in differentiating the curriculum for children with diverse needs and abilities, specifically geared toward general educators at the elementary level. Her primary area of interest relates to ways that teachers engage and challenge all students. Currently, Dr. Hertzog’s research engages teachers in collaborative inquiry groups that focus on how teachers differentiate their instruction to address the diverse needs of their students. She is the author of two books, and has published in the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review, Teaching Exceptional Children, Early Childhood Research and Practice, and Young Exceptional Children.
Curtis Hisayasu is the English instructor for the Early Entrance Program’s Transition School. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in 19th and 20th Century American Literature. While working towards this degree, he has also taught several classes for the English Department and has served as a liaison between the UW Extension “UW in the High Schools” Program and the Expository Writing Program, training teachers and coordinating college level composition curriculum in local area schools. Now in his sixth year of graduate school, Mr. Hisayasu is writing his dissertation. His current research interests include theories of citizenship and national belonging, American urbanism, and histories of race and industrialism.
Julie A. Lancour is the Director of the Early Entrance Program and the UW Academy for Young Scholars (Interim Assistant Director for Program Operations). Ms. Lancour earned her M.Ed. from the University of Washington in Leadership and Policy Studies. Her research interests include the design of programming to support the academic and socio-emotional needs of students as they transition into new academic settings, with a focus on early entrance students and issues of resiliency. She joined the Robinson Center in 2005 as the Counseling Services Coordinator and Academic Counselor and has more than twelve years experience working with adolescents in educational settings.
Therese Mar joined the Transition School in 2004 as the Precalculus instructor. Dr. Mar earned a Ph.D. in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, specializing in Toxicology with a research focus of toxicokinetic/pharmacokinetic modeling. She also has a Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics. In addition to teaching pre-calculus at the Transition School, she teaches math and statistics at the University of Washington’s Office of Minority Affairs Instructional Center. Dr. Mar’s current research is in the area of air pollution epidemiology, where she is investigating the adverse health effects of air pollution on susceptible populations.
Anna Marshall joined the Robinson Center staff as Academic Counselor in September 2011. She has worked with high-school-aged students in several capacities for nearly a decade, as a high school teacher and then as a Running Start adviser. Anna earned her M.Ed. in Student Affairs Administration from Western Washington University and currently is pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Language, Literature, and Culture.
Oscar Vilches is a Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Washington. This is his first year as co-instructor, with Professor Henley, in the Transition School. He received his undergraduate degree (Licenciado en Física) in 1959 and his graduate degree (Doctor en Física) in 1966 from the Instituto Balseiro, Universidad de Cuyo, Argentina. He was a post-doctoral associate at the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1966-67) and the U. of California at San Diego (1967-67) before joining the faculty at UW in 1968. He retired in 2006. He has had an experimental research group working on properties of one atomic or molecular layer films in the temperature range from 0.02 to 300 degrees Kelvin, currently devoted to the study of films deposited on carbon nanotubes at very low temperatures. He served as Associate Chair of Physics and as Physics Undergraduate Advisor for a number of years. He has won the “Outstanding high school graduate award” (for the class of 1953 from Lincoln, Argentina), the UW Dep. of Physics Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1985, 1997, 2002, the Lifetime Undergraduate Advising award from the Society of Physics students in 2006, and was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1997. His research group is funded by the National Science Foundation.