Travis Sandland

IDEAL Center Senior Project Lead

Travis joined the professional development team in 2006 , and is currently Senior Project Lead. Professionally, he is particularly interested in challenging and reconstructing the beliefs, attitudes, and values that undergird STEM and advantage some groups of students and ways of knowing over others in our educational systems and society at large.

Travis began his career at the museum after graduating with honors from Macalester College with a Bachelor of Science in Geology and a Physics minor and earning his masters in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University. He was a Youth Program Manager in the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center, the museum’syouth development program, where he worked with youth traditionally underrepresented in STEM careers. At this time he also worked as a  Earthscapes Outreach Teacher, collaborating with researchers at the University of Minnesota's National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics to translate their work into experiences for students and teachers.

Travis has been a contributing author on multiple grants and served as co-designer and facilitator for many programs for educational leaders. These include PAGE, funded by the National Science Foundation; Nexus: A Statewide Professional Community for District-Level STEM Leaders, funded by the Medtronic Foundation; and Science House and the museum’sEducator Resource Center, funded by the 3M Foundation. As an adjunct faculty member at Hamline University, he has been an instructor of record for many school-level, teacher-focused summer institutes.