Rebecca Cors

Ph.D.

Rebecca Cors, Ph.D., is a researcher and evaluator with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, UW–Madison. She is fascinated with how people learn and develop in ways that enable them to thrive.

Cors began her career in environmental education and outreach to support natural resources management. This led to research and teaching experiences in the U.S., Switzerland, and China. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in China, she taught about ecology and promoting environmentally sustainable behaviors as part of the faculty of the Zigong University of Science and Engineering, and, as a researcher at ETH Zurich, she investigated how solutions to environmental problems can be derived from collaboration between stakeholders and natural and social scientists.

Cors conducted her Ph.D. research in Switzerland, where she studied the effectiveness of a mobile science learning laboratory. She continues to work with programs that promote learning about science and nature, which often take place outside the classroom.

Her recent work has supported programs at the University of Wisconsin, including DELTA, WISCIENCE, IceCube, and the Rural Summer Science Camp. By drawing on her expertise in logic modeling, systems thinking, and collaborative interpretation of results, she helps managers examine the effectiveness of their programs in ways that are meaningful to them and their stakeholders. She has published and presented research on out-of-school learning in science and nature education and on collaborations to promote natural resources management.