Who We Are

Wendy Wempe, PhD

About Wendy

As both a scientist and mother, Wendy is driven to the core to revolutionize the Science Fair experience for kids and their grown-ups. She is driven by the results of Science Fair Fun’s programming.  Having dedicated 20+ years to STEM research, teaching and mentorship, she recently ditched her career as a geophysics research professor to pursue this passion – and now, she is on a mission to make Science Fair Fun! This mission brewed over several years while she:

• Mentored dozens of children on their Science Fair projects
• Judged local, regional and state Science & Engineering Fairs
• Helped schools implement fun and innovative Science Fairs

She is driven by purpose, while feeding off advice from the pros – kids, parents and teachers. She received a BS in Earth Sciences from UC Santa Cruz and a PhD in Geophysics from Stanford University.

In her spare time, Wendy revels in her children’s inquisition and loves to explore this amazing world with them and her very supportive husband. At the top of her list of other passions are exploring new places and ideas, mountain biking, road riding, touring by bike, trail running, hiking, and geeking out on the latest in STEM.

John Jenkins, JD

About John

Jenkins (age 68), now retired, holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington and a Juris Doctor from the University of Denver.  He was admitted to the Bar in 1978. His professional career includes a broad range of senior executive management experience in technology centric companies.  These include roles as Division President, Executive Vice President and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for public and private and domestic and international companies.  He served as a non-executive director of several smaller public and private companies, and has extensive professional experience in areas important to SFF such as organization modeling, financial planning and Board and Organizational Governance among others.

He has traveled extensively and used those opportunities to understand better different cultural approaches to learning and management processes.Since his retirement in 2016 he has served as a partner in the Denver Affiliate of Social Venture Partners (SVP), an organization of volunteers that works to provide necessary but many times missing expertise to smaller, early stage non-profits or those in significant transition. As part of SVP he has worked closely with two local organizations providing a variety of consulting services and coaching that included, in one case the addition of STEM curriculum to a bicycle training program serving low income communities. Also while at SVP he has become very interested in the topic of micro –financing for not for profit organizations and is currently engaged in developing an underwriting program for a local organization engaged in providing entrepreneurial training for low income individuals.

He is a strong believer in the importance of STEM based learning experiences as critical to the future success of students and our economy, and is personally dedicated to addressing the challenges that deprive low income or other demographic groupings of this opportunity.

He lives in Golden Colorado with his partner, Mary Ann, and is an avid cyclist and skier.

Stephanie Geyer, MBA

About Stephanie

Stephanie Geyer has worked in higher education marketing for nearly 30 years first serving a small private university and then as a consultant with Ruffalo Noel Levitz. In her 20+ year tenure at RNL she has visited more than 500 college and university campuses in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Italy. She created the Digital Marketing division for the company and now also leads the Creative Services team. In addition to her client work and team leadership, Stephanie also heads up the national E-expectations® research study which examines the habits and preferences of college-bound high school students in their use of digital resources to investigate their college options and facilitate enrollment. She is often called to share her findings and recommendations from the study at national conferences and via webinars and video blogs.

A graduate of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Stephanie earned a BA in Mass Communications and briefly dabbled in business school earning an MBA Certificate from Tulane University. She believes strongly in the transformative power of education and is grateful for the opportunity to support an organization that enhances STEM education opportunities for the students of Colorado and beyond.  Prior to her work in higher education she was an ad agency account executive, publicist and television news producer.

Stephanie resides in Boulder County, Colorado with her husband and three daughters. She is an artist, cowgirl, gardener and cyclist.

Maarten Warnarrs, MBA

About Maarten

Maarten is a Business Adviser at Cultivate Advisers. He is a seasoned C-suite executive (MBA) with over 17 years international experience with small and medium size enterprise (SMEs) and corporate companies. A decisive leader with the ability to restructure and transform businesses by creating and executing strategic business plans, assessing financial, operational and human resource needs to increase efficiency and competitiveness. Proven success in improving processes, managing the budget, optimizing resources, and increasing net profit by aligning team values and building strong relationships with clients, suppliers and employees.

Violeta Garcia, PhD

About Violeta

If it’s related to STEM, Dr. Violeta García knows all about it. Dr. García stays on top of cutting edge research, methodologies, and anything amusing and educational in the teaching and learning space. She is a leader in STEM in Colorado, and across the nation. Her passion is to advance students historically underrepresented and underserved in STEM fields through meaningful and engaging learning experiences. She has created numerous programs that serve students directly or that build capacity for educators to create fun, engaging, educational learning opportunities. She is a systems thinker, she loves disrupting outdated ways of thinking, and believes that all students should have access to high-quality, culturally relevant and culturally responsive learning experiences. Violeta is a world traveler, a lifelong learner, and a lover of all things related to sustainability. She has bridged her passion for science and education in her educational endeavors and is a graduate of California State University- Fullerton, UCLA, and the University of Northern Colorado.

Jessica Noffsinger, MS

About Jessica

Jessica Noffsinger has been an educator for 18 years and has spent the past 8 years teaching science and engineering at the STEM Magnet Lab School in the Adams 12 Five Star School District. She currently teaches 8th grade Science and Engineering.

Creating learning experiences that are engaging and thought provoking is Jessica’s specialty. Students in her classroom have engaged in several problem-based learning activities that have challenged students to use their understanding of scientific concepts to solve problems, ranging from replacing fluorescent lights in the classroom to landing 40,000 kilograms of cargo on Mars.

Jessica also sponsors a variety of extracurricular activities and serves on numerous school and district committees. Jessica has presented sessions on engineering, scientific literacy, and problem-based learning at regional and national conferences. She has also served as a facilitator for the past five years during the summer institute to train new teachers in the STEM-inspired model. Jessica served on the state committee tasked with writing the Colorado Academic Standards for Science to embed twenty-first century skills and various assessment teams.

Jessica earned a B.S. in chemistry from the Colorado School of Mines and a M.A. in educational leadership from the University of Denver. She is certified in secondary science education.

Jenny Briggs, PhD

About Jenny

As a community outreach program manager, Jenny helps develop partnerships, works with faculty and staff to help them design program strategies, leads our office’s environmental science and sustainbility initiative, manages community impact and micro grants, and coordinates outreach and engagement activities within and beyond our campus.

Jenny grew up in England and moved to the U.S. for college, obtaining a bachelor’s in human biology from Stanford University and a doctorate in ecology and conservation from the University of Nevada Reno. Most recently, Jenny worked as a research ecologist for the US Geological Survey in Denver, collaborating with resource managers, scientists, community groups, and educators throughout Colorado to tackle problems involving fire and forest management. Previously, she had teaching roles in California and Nevada that ranged from preschool, to college biology, to citizen science, to continuing education for teachers and firefighters. She builds on these connections and experiences in her current role.

Sam Spiegel, PhD

About Sam

Dr. Spiegel joined Mines in April 2015 to lead the Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL) in proactively supporting faculty to advance the quality of our students’ learning experiences, advance campus discussions on pedagogy and innovative teaching, and advocating for and supporting faculty use of empirically proven innovative teaching approaches.

His extensive background in science education includes experiences as both a middle school and high school science teacher, teaching university-level biology and science education courses, working with high-risk youth in alternative education centers, working in science museums, designing and facilitating online courses, multimedia curriculum development, and leading and researching professional learning for educators. The Association for the Education of Teachers of Science (AETS) honored Dr. Spiegel for his efforts in teacher education with the Innovation in Teaching Science Teachers award (1997). Dr. Spiegel’s current efforts focus on educational reform and in the innovation of teaching and learning resources and practices.

Prior to joining Mines, Dr. Spiegel served as Chair of the Disciplinary Literacy in Science Team at the Institute for Learning (IFL) and Associate Director for the Swanson School of Engineering’s Engineering Education Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. He previously served as a science educator at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS); as Director of Research & Development for a multimedia development company; and as founding Director of the Center for Integrating Research & Learning (CIRL) at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University. Under Dr. Spiegel’s leadership, CIRL matured into a thriving Center recognized as one of the leading National Science Foundation Laboratories for activities to promote science, mathematics, and technology (STEM) education. While at Florida State University, Dr. Spiegel also directed an award winning teacher enhancement program for middle grades science teachers, entitled Science For Early Adolescence Teachers (Science FEAT).