Media Contact: Michael Padilla, 277-1816

Aug. 5, 2002 UNM professor Michael Zeilik awarded 2002 AAS Education Prize Michael Zeilik, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Mexico, recently received an astronomical prize —the American Astronomical Society 2002 Education Prize. In announcing the award, the committee noted that “for the past 30 years, Mike Zeilik has been an innovator in the field of astronomy education and science education more generally. His tireless championing of teaching strategies that go beyond the usual lecture and the research that he has done. He has led our profession in developing collaborations, both with other astronomy education faculty and with researchers in the area of science education.” Zeilik specializes in introductory courses for the novice, non-science major student and is a pioneer in astronomy education research at the university level. He has garnered support for these undertakings from the NSF and NASA. Zeilik earned his PhD in astronomy at Harvard University. He has been a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, National Science Foundation Fellow and a Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Predoctoral Fellow. He has been a visiting professor at the Santa Fe Institute. At UNM, he has-been named a presidential lecturer, the highest award for all-around performance by a faculty member. He is the author of four widely-used textbooks, many printed in numerous editions including, Astronomy: The Evolving Universe (Cambridge University Press) Astronomy: The Cosmic Perspective with J. Gaustad (Wiley), Conceptual Astronomy (Wiley), and Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics with S. Gregory (Saunders). Zeilik lives in Santa Fe with his spouse, Kimberly, and sons Jeremy and Zachary. ###

The University of New Mexico
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