SENSRI People
SENSRI Board of Trustees:
Michael D'Aleo, Saratoga Springs, NY
Stephan Doyon, Saratoga Springs, NY
Kim Klopstock, Porter Corners, NY
Tim Scherbatskoy, Saratoga Springs, NY
Principal Researchers
Michael D'Aleo lectures nationally and internationally on the topics of science, education and environmental issues and is a founding member of the Saratoga Experiential Natural Science Research Institute (SENSRI) in Keene Valley, New York as the Director of Research. He was a co-founder of the high school at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs where he taught physical science and astronomy. Mr. D'Aleo is also an instructor of Waldorf School physical science teachers at The Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton New Hampshire as well as a guest teacher at various teacher training institutions and Waldorf Schools. He is the cofounder of, and leads the successful 6th, 7th and 8th grade science teacher training, Teaching Sensible Science.
Mr. D'Aleo has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Rutgers University where he graduated Summa cum Laude. He also holds a Masters degree in education from Sunbridge College.
After completing his undergraduate studies, Mr. D'Aleo worked in design and development for Lutron Electronics, an electronics company in eastern Pennsylvania. As a result of his work for seven years with the company, Mr. D'Aleo is listed as an inventor on seventeen U.S. patents and various foreign patents as well. He was promoted to the position of Engineering Project Leader in charge of New Product Development. Mr. D'Aleo's main interest was to find solutions to technical problems that resulted in designs that were artistic and based on processes found in the natural world. Many of his patents were the direct result of this interest.
In 1991, Mr. D'Aleo became involved in education and research out of his strong experience of the interrelationship between the world of man, both technical and artistic, and the natural world. He has lectured internationally on the topics of science and education in various settings. Mr. D'Aleo is co-author of the book Sensible Physics Teaching, a guide for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade educators to teach physics in a manner relevant to the experience of the students. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, Embracing Materialism and Letting It Go - An experiential guide to overcoming an object-based world conception
Mr. D'Aleo resides in the Adirondacks Mts. of New York State.
Tim Scherbatskoy holds a Ph.D. in plant physiology from the University of Vermont where he was an assistant professor and taught graduate and undergraduate classes in environmental science, forestry, and philosophy of science. He was also a founder and director of the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative, an environmental research center dedicated to long-term studies of ecosystem condition, and was a member of the Vermont Advisory Committee on Mercury Pollution. He has published a dozen research papers about the effects and behavior of environmental pollutants in plants and forest ecosystems, and supported this research with over $1.9 million in research grants. Currently Tim teaches biology, botany, and ecology at Adirondack Community College in Queensbury, NY, where he also oversees the Green Communities Initiative. His research focuses on the activity of water in artesian springs and trees, and on creating sustainable transition communities through tending, mending and restoring our landscapes.
Associate Researchers
Georg Maier is a coauthor of the books Being on Earth (published in 2006), and The Marriage of Sense and Thought (1997). His research has focused on modes of observation and conceptualization of nature when he worked at the Forschungslinstitut am Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Formerly he was engaged in neutron diffraction research at the Kernforschungsanlage Julich (KFA) in Germany.
Ron Brady, Georg Maier, Stephen Edelglass
In Memoriam:
Stephen Edelglass was a founding member of SENSRI and co-director until his death in November 2000. He was a graduate of MIT (BS and MS in mechanical engineering) and the Stevens Institute of Technology (MS, physics, and Ph.D. in metallurgy). He was a Professor of mechanical engineering at Cooper Union in New York, Director of Science at the Threefold Educational Foundation in Chestnut Ridge, NY, and on the graduate faculty at Sunbridge College in Spring Valley. He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship. He was the author of several books on materials science and philosophy of science, and a number of research papers in the areas of materials science, epistemology and pedagogy. Stephen was coauthor of Being on Earth (2006) and The Marriage of Sense and Thought (1997). His later writings and lectures have been recently published as The Physics of Human Experience (2006).
Ronald Brady was a Professor of Philosophy at Ramapo College in New Jersey until his death in 2003. He received a BS in literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the State University of New York, Buffalo. Dr. Brady was the author of numerous scientific papers and has contributed to books on the subjects of epistemology and evolutionary biology. Several of his publications in these areas are in harmony with his work as an associate researcher with SENSRI, and are available on line at the SENSRI web site. Ron was also a coauthor of Being on Earth (2006).
