Gabrielle Lyon

Gabrielle Lyon is the cofounder and executive director of Project Exploration, a nonprofit science education organization which works to ensure underserved communities—particularly minority youth and girls—have access to state-of-the-art science education, regardless of academic achievement. Lyon founded the organization in 1999 with her husband, University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno.

Lyon champions the belief that science can and should be accessible to everyone, especially to those to whom it traditionally has been closed. Lyon developed and implemented Project Exploration’s original youth, public and online programs and continues to spearhead new program initiatives. She led two strategic planning processes and established the organization’s innovative earned revenue strategy. Project Exploration has received national recognition for leveling the playing field in science, including receipt of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (2009) and recognition as a national model by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2010).

Prior to founding Project Exploration, Lyon served as the director of the School Change Institute at the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project. Lyon has represented the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations and addressed the U.N. Subcommittee on Human Rights. In addition she has participated in seven international paleontology expeditions and discovered the African dinosaur Deltadromeus. Lyon serves on the Executive Committee of the Coalition for Science After School. In 2009 Lyon was named a Leadership Fellow by The Chicago Community Trust. Lyon received her Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2010. Lyon blogs at www.schoolingscienceblog.org.