Dr. Ilan Chabay has been working for many years to improve public understanding of the ideas of science and promote public involvement in the issues of science and technology in society. The two parallel strands of his work have been the creation of innovative science learning products, including exhibitions, games, and toys, and the implementation of new strategies that engage children and adults from diverse communities in the ideas and issues of science. He serves as an advisor and consultant to museums, media companies, design firms, schools, and government agencies worldwide.

Ilan serves on the Leadership and Planning Group for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Office of Space Science and is currently directing a team designing an innovative NASA Science Education Framework. The Framework will be a web site that provides a clear and coherent means of access to NASA wide array of resources for teachers, curriculum developers, and scientists engaged in outreach. Resources for teaching and learning science will be connected to national science education standards and embedded in the rich and exciting context of NASA people, facilities, research, missions, and exploration of space.

Ilan is also leading a diverse and highly acclaimed team in developing an innovative multi-player role-playing computer adventure game based on real science and designed to engage adolescent girls and boys in sustained adventures in learning.

He is Institute Fellow at the Institute for Learning Innovation in Annapolis, MD, where he has initiated a collaborative research project on adolescent learning from innovative computer games. He is also Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK, where he occasionally joins a multidisciplinary team in teaching portions of a Master’s degree course in science communication.

Ilan was the first recipient of the Alan B. Leviton Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Science Education of Children and Youth presented in 1999 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The award recognizes the creativity, playfulness, artistry, and scientific integrity of his work and his long-standing commitment to science education.

Between founding The New Curiosity Shop® (NCS) in 1983 and closing its workshop in 2001 in order to focus on consulting, Ilan and his staff designed, developed, and produced innovative learning programs and hands-on science exhibits for over 230 institutions in 16 countries. Science Projects, Ltd. in England is now producing the exhibits and Dowling Magnets in California is producing the PolePatterns™ magnetic toy under licenses from NCS.

Ilan has planned museums and exhibitions in collaboration with architects and designers, developed a regional science outreach center and its educational programs, and developed individual interactive exhibits. His work has contributed to improving the quality of science learning experiences available to millions of children and adults in science centers, children’s museums, retail businesses, and corporate visitor centers. Ilan has developed scores of very popular hands-on exhibits using real phenomena, physical models, and electronic simulations. These include Ribosome Restaurant™, Magnetic PolePatterns™, Flow Tunnel™, and the Giant Magnetic Disk Drive™ -- the world’s slowest and lowest density magnetic storage disk drive.

Ilan initiated in 1996 what he calls “Guerilla Science,” which uses existing commercial infrastructure and marketing budgets of businesses to provide new opportunities for children to engage in science learning activities within their neighborhoods. Hands-on science exhibits packaged as game-like products to entertain customers were sold to businesses, including grocery stores, fast food restaurant chains, and a cruise ship. For example, one game, Magnetic Circus™, engages up to three people at a time in three magnetically controlled activities illustrating chaos, statistics, and resonance. Another, Ping Pong Pinball Game™, introduces children to chemistry generating electricity to break water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen gases and then uses combustion of the gases to propel a ping pong ball up into a maze, where it can be played like a pinball game.

Ilan has taught science at the elementary, secondary, and university levels, conducted workshops for teachers and parents on effective strategies for engaging children in inquiry-driven, active science learning, and co-founded an innovative rural science education outreach program. At universities he has worked with faculty and graduate students to help them communicate their scientific and engineering research to lay adult audiences and presented workshops on design of interactive learning experiences. He has been a keynote speaker at conferences and presented invited talks at scores of corporations, universities, schools, and museums worldwide. He is responsible for three patents issued and several pending on science-based games and toys.

Ilan has a B.A. degree from Clark University in Worcester, MA, where he completed a major in chemistry with an additional focus on intellectual history. After receiving his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago, he was awarded a National Institutes of Health Fellowship in biophysical chemistry for post-doctoral work at the University of Illinois. Subsequently, he developed several new analytical methods using lasers during eight years as senior research scientist and project leader at the National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST). He is the author of 28 research papers in major scientific journals. He left NIST in 1982 to serve as the Associate Director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. After leaving the Exploratorium and founding The New Curiosity Shop® in 1983, he was Consulting Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University from 1983 through 1988, where he taught courses in physical and analytical chemistry. In other academic positions, Ilan has been Distinguished Visiting Professor at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, CA (1989), Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia (1985), and the Institutes for Molecular Science in Okazaki, Japan (1981).