Casey’s Story
Casey O’Hara grew up in Portland, Oregon, with an aptitude for science and a love of music. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Stanford University and worked as an engineer in the tech and medical sectors prior to teaching.
Casey entered the teacher credential program at San Francisco State in 2003 and started teaching physics and integrated science at Carlmont High School in 2004. Through his experiences with the Knowles Teaching Fellowship and the Exploratorium Teacher Institute, Casey developed and refined an inquiry-focused curriculum incorporating elements of Modeling Instruction and Project-Based Learning. His favorite project combined his love of physics and love of music: students in small groups were tasked to design and build functional musical instruments based on fundamentals of physics, and then perform for the class. He continually strove to strengthen the physics offerings at Carlmont, and developed a program in Engineering and Green Technology for students who wished to pursue physics concepts in a context of environmental concerns.
Casey was among the first Knowles Teaching Fellows to earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the highest standard of teaching excellence held by educators. During the 2009–2010 winter (Austral summer) he traveled to the South Pole to take part in the construction of IceCube, the world’s largest telescope built to detect neutrino particles and the biggest research project ever attempted in Antarctica. He mentored new teachers around the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the Exploratorium Teacher Institute, and was awarded the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence in 2011.
In 2012, Casey left the high school classroom to pursue a Master of Environmental Science and Management degree at UC Santa Barbara, and in 2022, earned his Ph.D. focusing on marine conservation and data science. He currently works at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, combining research and teaching to support students and early career researchers in reproducible environmental data science.