Francis Molina, Associate Program Director
(202) 326-7002

Francis Molina is an associate program director for AAAS Project 2061. Molina's conducts research in online learning spaces. This research includes the overall leadership and management, as Principal Investigator, of the NSF-funded grant, Building Capacity for Determining the content Alignment and Instructional Quality of K-12 NSDL Resources. Previously Molina was the technology directory for AAAS Project 2061.

Molina collaborates with several National Science Digital Library (NSDL) projects that are making use of the maps from Project 2061’s Atlas of Science Literacy as interfaces for browsing their collections. These projects introduced the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format for the Science Literacy Maps. Molina was co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation-funded NSDL project, “PRISMS: Phenomena and Representations for the Instruction of Science in Middle Schools” and is the principal investigator of a new NSF grant to Project 2061, “Building Capacity for Determining the Content Alignment and Instructional Quality of K–12 NSDL Resources.” He is also a regular presenter at the annual SVG conference.

Molina has a background in research, science education, and computing. Prior to joining Project 2061, he was a research scientist at the American Type Culture Collection where his responsibilities included managing the development of science-oriented multimedia CD-ROM products and training staff in Web authoring, graphics packages, presentation, digital video production, and database management. He was also an assistant professor and a lecturer in the Philippines at the University of Santo Tomas and the University of the Philippines, teaching courses in cell and molecular biology. As a fellow of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1995 and 1996, he contributed towards teacher training and professional development by conducting workshops in molecular biology and the use of Internet computing tools.

Molina earned his B.S. and M.S. in botany from the University of the Philippines, his Ph.D. (botany) from the University of British Columbia—Vancouver, Canada, and his Certificate in Interactive Multimedia (a combined track in Web development and multimedia authoring) from George Washington University. He maintains strong ties with the Washington-area multimedia community.