Jo Ellen Roseman, a nationally recognized leader in science curriculum reform who directed Project 2061 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, died on Sept. 6 in Columbia, Maryland. She was 81.
“She was very driven,” said her son David Roseman. “If she had lived to 100, she would still be working if she could. It wasn’t just a job to her — it was her mission to make sure students really learned science.”
Roseman dedicated her career to advancing science literacy for American students. At AAAS, she oversaw programs in curriculum, instruction and assessment and later served as director of the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science, a multiuniversity collaboration.
She helped develop Benchmarks for Science Literacy and directed Resources for Science Literacy: Professional Development. She also led studies of science and mathematics textbooks that influenced school systems nationwide.
Her son Daniel Roseman said what set his mother apart was her willingness to embrace challenges. “She took on extreme challenges, and even when told she couldn’t achieve them, she went on and did it,” he said. After years as a science teacher in Michigan, Boston and Virginia, she enrolled in Johns Hopkins to earn a Ph.D. in biochemistry and then pivoted from lab work to national education and curriculum reform. “She could have had a secure career at Johns Hopkins,” Daniel Roseman said. “But she decided to take on a riskier project because that’s who she was — a risk taker who wanted to save the world.”
Project 2061, named for the year Halley’s Comet returns, set out to improve science literacy nationwide. The project convened teachers each summer to workshop better ways to teach topics such as plate tectonics and photosynthesis. Those sessions produced instructional materials and benchmarks later piloted in Washington and Howard County.
Although budget cuts eventually ended the project, Roseman had already left her mark on the way science was taught.
Her work ethic impressed her family. “She would put in 60 to 70 hours a week,” David Roseman said. “Whether at her office in D.C. or at her desk at home, she always seemed to be working.”
At home, however, her passions reflected both her practicality and her sense of wonder. An avid scuba diver, she and her husband Mark traveled frequently to the Caribbean. “Nothing made her happier than dragging my dad underwater to see an octopus or a moray eel,” David Roseman said. She also loved gardening and took pride in her compost bin. Her funeral home obituary nodded to that passion with a playful request: In lieu of flowers, compost was welcome.
The family recalled her DIY spirit. In her 30s, she built what her sons still call “the world’s most robust swing set,” which lasted long enough to be passed along to another family.
Summers often centered on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where Roseman and her husband rented a beach house to gather their children and grandchildren. “That was really important to her,” David Roseman said. “She treated us all and wanted us together.”
Jewish life remained a constant. The family first joined Columbia Jewish Congregation, where both sons became bar mitzvah, and later moved to Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Howard County. Roseman and her husband also helped cover the costs of Jewish summer camp for their grandchildren. “They felt it was important to support their grandchildren’s Jewish upbringing,” David Roseman said.
Daniel Roseman said his mother’s Jewish values shaped her choices. “She was very righteous, morally guided, always trying to achieve mitzvot,” he said. He remembered when his brother was injured in a car accident caused by another teenager; some family members suggested a lawsuit. “My mother refused because it wasn’t a neighborly thing to do,” he said. “That describes her character.”
Roseman also supported Baltimore institutions, donating to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Maryland Zoo, the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center. She enjoyed taking her grandchildren to those places, encouraging their curiosity about nature and science. She also contributed to the Yiddish Book Center, located in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Born Jo Ellen Krulee in Brooklyn in 1944, she spent parts of her childhood in the Washington, D.C., area, Park Forest, Illinois, and Dayton, Ohio. She attended public schools before entering the University of Michigan, where she met her husband in a science lab. Both pursued biochemistry, though her career took her from classrooms to national curriculum reform. He became a biochemist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. The couple settled in Columbia in 1979.
Those closest to Roseman remember her as a calm, wise presence. “She was always in a good mood, always smiling, always a great listener,” David Roseman said. “She wasn’t a typical Jewish mother — no guilt trips, just steady and supportive.”
Her family believes she would want to be remembered for her impact on science education. “It was very important to her that students not only learned science but became passionate about it,” David Roseman said. “That was her life’s work.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.
