Dr. Tanya Faltens is the Assistant Director of Education and Community Partnerships for the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN), which created the open access nanoHUB.org cyber-platform to help advance the goals of the National Nanotechology Initiative (NNI). Her technical background is in Materials Science and Engineering (Ph.D. UCLA 2002). She has several years’ experience in hands-on informal science education (including working at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley), and in formal engineering instruction at Cal Poly Pomona. She has managed the NCN Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) program at Purdue University since 2014.