Award II, the Outstanding Mentor Award, recognizes outstanding accomplishments in contributing to the professional development of pre-service and in-service science teachers and teacher educators. The ASTE Awards Committee selected Dr. Dana Zeidler for this award.

Doctoral candidates Anna Raphaella Lewis and Leila Amiri nominated Dr. Zeidler for this award. I thank you for organizing the nomination of Dr. Zeidler for this award.

Dr. Zeidler is Professor of Science Education and Program Coordinator for Science Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Dr. Zeidler has served as the President for the Southeastern Association for Education of Teachers in Science, served as the first managing editor for the Journal of Science Teacher Education, and was the conference chair for the 2007 International Association for Science Teacher Education Annual Meeting held at Clearwater Beach, Florida.  

His research centers on areas related to socioscientific issues including ethical issues in science, moral and cognitive reasoning, discourse issues related to argumentation, epistemological belief systems, and the nature of science. His research is widely published in many international journals. He works closely with over 20 doctoral students encouraging and mentoring them in their Ph.D. studies, as well as working with graduate students and new faculty from other universities in an effort to develop their research interests. Work that he co-authored received the highest award by the Journal of Research in Science Teaching for “the most significant contribution” in 2006, and several of his students have won the outstanding paper contribution by a graduate student award at SASTE conferences.