At the time of the programme, Ellen McCallie was the co-ordinator of interpretation in the education division at the Missouri Botanical Garden. This means she spends her time designing ways to communicate about research and science to visitors, teachers and students.

Ellen grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and is a tropical ecologist and educator. She spent a year in Bogor, Indonesia as an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student before attending Grinnell College in Iowa, where she earned a BA in Biology, with a concentration in Environmental Science, in 1992.

Following college, Ellen spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar, conducting research on the pollination of agroforestry trees in the Amazon Basin. Ellen’s graduate research was conducted in Timor, Indonesia, on alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture.

Ellen then went on to become the first education curator of the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House and Education Center in St. Louis before starting her own elementary science curriculum business. This is Ellen's first Rough Science project.

Read about Ellen's views on science in our interview, or learn more about the series from her Rough Science diary entries:

Arrival
Mapping it out - paper and ink
Bugs and barometers - anti-bacterial cream
Time and transmitters - kite
Feel the heat - sunblock
Sun and sea - solar power
Science of celebration - music