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#WhereScienceLives: Jason Osborne

Have you ever participated in a live interview while hanging from a cliff face? Jason Osborne has. Learn more about why and how below.

Published October 04, 2016

#WhereScienceLives: Jason Osborne

Getting scientists and students to work together on meaningful scientific research that's also engaging is not an easy task. We work to do it through our Global STEM Alliance programs, but we're also always interested in seeing how others do similar work. That's how we learned about Jason Osborne.

Jason is currently the President and Co-Founder of Paleo Quest and the Chief Innovation Officer at Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas. And he's been everywhere from the White House to Google to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to champion STEM learning and citizen-science projects.

At Paleo Quest Jason focuses in particular on leveraging citizen-science to advance paleontology and geology. On this work in particular, Jason told us: "I love contributing to science and helping to figure out our prehistoric past. I get to choose my scientific questions and field excursions. How cool is that? I also share experiences and my field research with K-12 students."

See Jason in action out in the field in the photos below.

Jason during a Google Science Fair live interview while hanging from a 110-foot cliff along the Chesapeake Bay. Google broadcasted the live interview through Jason's smart phone to students around the world.
Jason getting ready to scuba dive for fossils in the Great Dismal Swamp located on the eastern boarders of Virginia and North Carolina. View the National Geographic video from this excursion here.

From Jason: "The area east of Interstate 95, along the eastern seaboard of the United States, is a sweet spot for my underwater geology and paleontology. I search underwater formations where rivers have luckily done most of the excavation. The downside (and risky side) is that I'm challenged by next to zero or zero visibility, heavy currents, underwater obstacles such as trees, fishing line, nets, caverns, broken glass, and the occasional bull shark or alligator depending on the area I'm searching."
Jason holding a huge fossil Megalodon shark tooth found while scuba diving in a Virginia swamp river.
Jason navigating and searching for ancient sea life along Cretaceous outcrops in West Texas.

Learn about the many ways you can help inspire others to get involved in STEM by checking out our many mentorship programs, whether it's mentoring a young person or an early career scientist through our Member-to-Member program.