Superbloom Fellows
Dr.Beth
Duckles
Beth M. Duckles, PhD is a research consultant and social scientist. She works with technologists, designers and scientists to gather and use human-centered data to address complex technical problems. She coaches researchers on mixed methods and qualitative research skills. She gives talks and runs workshops on a variety of topics such as research skills, biomimetic organizations, and running online workshops.
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As an academic, she spent a year as an embedded ethnographic researcher at the U.S. Green Building Council while they created the LEED v4 Green Building Standard. Her research focused on how a mission-driven organization could change the market with a voluntary standard.
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She has taught college courses at Portland State University, Bucknell University, the University of Arizona and Jesuit Worldwide Learning through Regis University. She was an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Department of Energy, Office of Electricity where she worked with a
variety of initiatives to encourage open data standards. She led the inaugural Bucknell in D.C. program on Energy and the Environment and was a founding member of the Sustainability Working Group at Bucknell University.
Dr. Duckles earned a B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology from Earlham College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona. She is the Founder and Co-Director of Open Post Academics, an online peer-support community for people with a Ph.D. who have left or are considering leaving academia. She received a Mozilla OLx Fellowship and a grant from Code for Science and Society to support these efforts.
She lives in Portland, Oregon and enjoys travel, gardening, aerial arts and fiber arts such as spinning yarn and knitting. She is also an accomplished a storyteller and a writer, telling stories on stage and publishing literary nonfiction. She was honored to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her writing.
She volunteers with The Dougy Center for grieving children and families, the Mozilla Foundation as a 2022 MozFest Wrangler and Open Life Sciences as a Mentor. She holds the rank of shodan (first degree black belt) in Aikido, a Japanese martial art.