Michele M MontgomerySince 2004, Michele M. Montgomery has been part of the physics faculty at one of the top three universities with the most undergraduate students, The University of Central Florida. She teaches introductory astronomy, astrophysics, astrobiology, galaxes and cosmology courses to large and small audiences, both face-to-face and online. At UCF, she created a Life in the Universe course that is taught each spring as a follow-up to the fall semester's astronomy course. Since 2006, she has been an adjunct professor at Valencia College, an urban college with more than 35,000 students, where she started the astronomy program at the east campus. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of AAS WOMEN, a weekly newsletter product of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA). She is a co-author on 'WOMEN IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATH (STEM) - Getting Ahead via the Internet' in the book 'WOMEN, WORK, AND THE WEB: HOW THE WEB CREATES ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES' BY SCARECROSS PRESS 2013. With Mike Seeds and Dana Backman, she coauthors HORIZONS HYBRID: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE 13e and UNIVERSE HYBRID: SOLAR SYSTEM, STARS, AND GALAXIES, 8e and contributed to HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE 13e AND UNIVERSE: SOLAR SYSTEM, STARS, AND GALAXIES 7e - all published by Cengage. Dr. Montgomery earned her bachelor's degree in nuclear/mechanical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, master's degree in physics from the University of Alabama, and Ph.D in physics from Florida Institute of Technology. Prior to her career in academia, she was a nuclear engineer for Bechtel Corporation working on projects at DOE's Savannah River Plant and TVA's Browns Ferry nuclear power plant. Read More Read Less