Gabrielle Lyon

Gabrielle is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Project Exploration, an organization that champions the belief that science can and should be accessible to everyone, especially to whom it traditionally has been closed.

In 1999, Gabrielle co-founded Project Exploration with her husband, paleontologist Paul Sereno, to ensure underserved communities—particularly minority youth and girls—have access to state-of-the-art science education, regardless of academic achievement. As the Executive Director, Lyon developed and implemented Project Exploration’s original youth, teacher and online programs and continues to spearhead new program initiatives.
She has led two strategic planning processes and established the organization's innovative earned revenue business plan.

Prior to founding Project Exploration, Lyon served as the director of the School Change Institute at the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project. Lyon has represented the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations and addressed the U.N. Subcommittee on Human Rights. In addition she has participated in seven international paleontology expeditions and discovered the African dinosaur Deltadromeus. In 2009 Lyon was named a Leadership Fellow by the Chicago Community Trust. Gabrielle Lyon’s blog, “Schooling Science,” can be found at www.schoolingscience.org.

Gabrielle received her BA and MA in History from the University of Chicago and is pursuing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Chicago.