Dr. Jonathan Yavelow Shares His Enthusiasm for WIRED and Bio-1
Read his story and see links to all of the plans he has made for NJ Life Sciences Week

My introduction to the WIRED project was at its inception. David Finegold, Dean of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers had contacted me and others to work on the proposal for the U.S Department of Labor.  I distinctly remember David telling me his vision of creating a sufficiently robust BioScience community so as workers move from one company to another they would not have to move their families.  After the grant was funded we have had the good fortune of hiring Mary Ellen Clark as our Executive Director.  Mary Ellen and her staff have made the volunteer efforts of the WIRED participants both easy and productive.

I have very much enjoyed bringing Rider University into the overall project whose goal is to:  “Retain and expand the number of high-quality jobs in Central New Jersey’s bioscience sector.  Transform into a clear and comprehensive workforce development systems for CNJ’s bioscience-based industries to remain competitive globally.”  In addition to sitting on both the Governing Board and Executive Committee for WIRED I have been leading a working group (group 1) whose goal is to excite young people about the Biosciences with a focus on under-represented minorities.

We have been able to build a collaborative mindset with the goal of doing sustainable work for our region that will live on after the WIRED grant is over.  Our approach has been to take proposals and in some cases engage potential grantees in dialogue with the committee as well as other grantees in a spirit of collaboration.  This tone has resulted in some highly functional and synergistic outcomes.  Most recently we have been working with Middlesex County College (and potentially all County Colleges in our region) to better reach out to area high schools and make more seamless articulation agreements with 4 year colleges and universities.  Furthermore, the Rutgers-based RISE program, which focuses on increasing the number of minorities to pursue the Ph.D., will more closely work with other colleges both in the areas of STEM content and mentoring.

A challenge that we have for transformational and sustainable change in our region is to implement inquiry-based educational strategies in high school science and mathematics classrooms.  We are heartened by the new New Jersey Statewide examinations in the sciences which focus on critical thinking and problem solving.  The implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs) among high school STEM teachers is a very exciting development as these PLCs provide a forum for teachers to share and learn best practices from each other.   Expansion of displaced scientists, engineers and mathematicians into the teaching profession also requires good training programs on behalf of our high school STEM students.

I look forward to communicating with you again in mid 2010 to apprise you of all the great work we all hope to accomplish.

Click here to see the amazing events that Dr. Yavelow has put on the calendar for NJ Life Sciences Week!

For a full bio on Dr. Yavelow, please click here.