Colleen McLinn joined the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in 2006. Her role as Content Information Specialist is to serve as a liaison to the educational community by interpreting their curricular needs for animal behavior audio and video.

Colleen’s background is in animal behavior research, and she received a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Minnesota in 2006. Her dissertation research was on learning and information use in Blue jays.

Colleen became involved in K-12 educational outreach while serving as an NSF GK-12 Fellow during 2005-2006.  She co-taught science in a second and third grade classroom, and ran after-school science clubs for Minneapolis Public School students in grades 2-8.

Colleen is currently working on an NSF National Science Digital Library project to develop educational resources using birds to teach physics concepts about sound, color, flight, and motion. She is interested in the role of technology and multimedia in learning, and enthusiastic about using the Macaulay Library’s online sound and video archive for education. She has submitted a grant to develop a citizen science project using sound recording and information technologies to involve teenagers in asking and answering questions about nature.