Lynn D. DierkingLynn D. Dierking is Director of Strategy & Partnerships, Institute for Learning Innovation, and Professor, Free-Choice Learning, Oregon State University. Her research on lifelong, out-of-school learning (after-school, home- and community-based contexs), with youth and families, focuses primarily on youth/families living in poverty and/or not historically engaged in free-choice learning from cultural institutions/organizations. Dr. Dierking is PI of a US-NSF project, SYNERGIES: Customizing Interventions to Sustain Youth STEM Interest and ParticipationPathways,studying youths’ STEM interest and participation longitudinally in an under-resourced community. She also is co-PI of a US-NSF/UK-Wellcome Trust Science Learning+ Partnership project, Partnering for ‘Equitable STEM Pathways’ for Youth Underrepresented in STEM. She is on Editorial Boards for Connected Science Learning, Afterschool Matters and Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship. Awards include the 2010 American Alliance of Museums’ John Cotton Dana Award for Leadership and a 2016 NARST Distinguished Contributions to Science Education through Research award for helping to establish the field of free-choice learning research. Read More Read Less