Empowering Children with Gabrielle Lyon, Executive Director of Project Exploration

As the co-founder and Executive Director of Project Exploration, Gabrielle Lyon combines social justice activism with a passion for informal science education. Her vision for Project Exploration is to make science accessible to the public—with a special focus on minority youth and girls—through personalized experiences with science and scientists. Lyon earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University of Chicago and is working on a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lyon represented the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations in 1995 and was recognized as one of “Tomorrow’s Leaders Today” by Public Allies in 1999 and one of the Community Renewal Society’s “35 Under 35” in 2007. She was also a recipient of The Chicago Community Trust Fellowship in 2009. Lyon has participated in seven international expeditions to Africa, China, and South America, and, in 1995, discovered the predatory dinosaur Deltadromeus. She cofounded Project Exploration in 1999 with paleontologist Paul Sereno and became the executive director in 2000. For more information on Gabrielle Lyon or Project Exploration, please visit www.projectexploration.org.