Dr. Douglas Duncan is a faculty member in the Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences of the University of Colorado, where he also directs the Fiske Planetarium (http://fiske.colorado.edu). He formerly was on the staff of the Hubble Space Telescope and did research that first found sunspot cycles (similar to the sun’s 11 year cycle) on other stars. Other research detected the elements formed during the epoch of primordial nucleosynthesis that occurred shortly after the Big Bang. He also served 4 years as a science commentator for National Public Radio (station WBEZ, Chicago).

Dr. Duncan has now turned his research interests to finding and assessing the most effective ways of teaching astronomy. He is author of the book, “Clickers in the Classroom,” which presents ways to use wireless student response systems, or “clickers,” in science classes.