Dr. Maureen Scharberg is Director of the Science Education Program at SJSU and Professor of Chemistry, specializing in chemical education. She also serves as the BA Chemistry and BA Chemistry, Teacher Preparation Advisor.

Her previous research experience is in protein NMR investigations of heme proteins before expanding her research interests to chemical education twelve years ago. Her research interests involve how non-science majors learn and perceive chemistry, developing effective teaching and learning curricula and strategies for the chemistry classroom and developing and implementing course and program evaluation plans. She has received numerous awards for her excellence in teaching chemistry. Her past projects have including developing and implementing a "blended" general and organic four-semester course sequence for the NSF "New Traditions" Project for the Systemic Reform of Undergraduate Chemistry. Currently, she serves on the writing team for the ACS Chemistry textbook project. Her main contribution to this project is the "Faculty Resource On-Line Guide" (FROG), an instructor "script" for teaching inquiry-based, activity-based general chemistry curricula. This text will be published in March 2004. The FROG has received excellent reviews from both field testers and reviewers. In 2002, she developed an inquiry-based physical science course for undergraduate students interested in obtaining a Multiple Subjects teaching credential at SJSU.

From the beginning of the Santa Clara County Biotechnology Education Partnership (SCCBEP) in 1992 through 2001, Dr. Scharberg was the Executive Director of SCCBEP and was responsible for providing the leadership, administration and sustainability to this program. Now, she is working with interested high school teachers and representatives of Silicon Valley�s nanotechnology industries to create a similar nanotechnology partnership.

She has been involved with many high school and college chemistry teacher workshops, both locally and nationally. Most notably, she organized the ACS Division of Chemical Education, Operation PROGRESS-IV (Professional Regional Outreach Groups for Revitalizing and Enhancing Secondary Science) at Clemson University in 1996 for 55 high school chemistry teachers. Six years later at a follow-up workshop in November 2002, over half of the 55 OP-IV teachers met and confirmed the lasting impact of this 4-day workshop on their professional careers in teaching high school chemistry.