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Press Room

Ed Sobey, Ph.D.

Ed Sobey, Ph.D., is the leader in creating innovation-based learning activities. As founding director of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Ed met and learned from the world's greatest inventors how to effectively engage people in learning science and technology through inventing.

Ed is former director of four museums and one children’s museum. He founded the National Toy Hall of Fame and co-founded both Kids Invent! and Camp Invention. Ed has published 22 books and has 5 more books that will be published in 2011.

His hands-on science-technology workshops have been enjoyed by teachers and museum staff in 20 US states and 19 countries. The camps and learning activities of Kids Invent! all reflect the same hands-on, inventing approach to learning.

Ed taught for the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea on the M/V Explorer on a circumnavigation. A former naval officer and oceanographer Ed has participated in expeditions to Antarctica and throughout the Pacific Ocean. He holds a Ph.D. from Oregon State University.

Timothy M. Stearns, Ph.D.

Timothy M. Stearns is the holder of the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies and Executive Director/Founder of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fresno www.lylescenter.com. Professor Stearns received his MBA degree in management and a doctorate in management/sociology from Indiana University. He previously was a member of the Management faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Marquette University. He has served on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Journal, and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Small Business Management. Professor Stearns has co-authored a textbook on management and is the author of more than 100 research articles and presentations. He has taught and lectured on entrepreneurship and innovation to students and executives in Thailand, Poland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, India, Singapore, Germany, Malaysia, France, Belgium, and the Peoples Republic of China. He served as Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management www.aomonline.org in 2006 and 2008. In addition, he is on the Board of the Central Valley Business Incubator, a not for profit facility www.cvbi.org. Professor Stearns is also co-founder of Kids Invent! www.kidsinvent.com a company that sells creative hands on learning around the world. He is a co-founder of the National Network for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization www.n2tec.org, a nonprofit located in Rapid City, South Dakota. Most recently he co-founded the American Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, LLC in partnership with educators in Singapore www.americaniie.org. In 2007, Professor Stearns won the prestigious Wang Family Excellence Award given each year to 4 faculty members selected from the 23 campus wide California State System. In January 2009, Professor Stearns was elected a fellow of the U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, one of 51 Fellows who have been inducted since 1986. He also received the university’s 2009 President’s Award of Excellence which annually recognizes a faculty member at California State University, Fresno. You can listen to him interview entrepreneurs and innovators on The Pulse, a weekly radio show available for streaming or download at http://kfsr.org/public-affairs/the-pulse/