Supporter News — October 2026
Clockwise, from top left: Rob Boston, Adam Laats, Jessica Moran, Peter Sinclari, Jacklyn Reeves-Pepin, and Sarah Ott.
Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a valued ally of NCSE’s, was awarded the Rev. Barry W. Lynn Defender of the Wall Award by Americans United during its 2025 Summit for Religious Freedom. Americans United’s president and CEO Rachel Laser commented that Boston “has been a titan for AU and our cause, a fountain of institutional and church-state separation knowledge, and the best team player any workplace could hope for.”
Adam Laats, Professor of Education and History at Binghamton University, was named a distinguished professor, the highest rank awarded by the State University of New York. A May 13, 2025, press release from the university mentioned, “In 2022, he received the National Center for Science Education’s prestigious Friend of Darwin award.”
Jessica Moran, formerly a staffer at NCSE, was named the Chief Librarian and Director of the Library Collections Directorate at the Alexander Turnbull Library, part of the National Library of New Zealand, in July 2025. Moran was NCSE’s archivist during the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005 and helped to research the prehistory of the “intelligent design” movement. As a result, drafts of the “intelligent design” textbook Of Pandas and People, revealing its creationist origins, were subpoenaed by the plaintiffs’ legal team and effectively deployed in the trial.
Sarah Ott, a former NCSE Teacher Ambassador, was featured on Story Collider’s June 6, 2025, episode “Pseudoscience: Stories about Scientific Misinformation,” in which she mentioned her work with NCSE on climate change education, which gave her the opportunity to meet the climate scientist Ben Santer, a former member of NCSE’s board of directors.
Jaclyn Reeves-Pepin, the former executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers and a long-time valued partner of NCSE’s, was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2024.
Peter Sinclair, a recipient of NCSE’s Friend of the Planet award, contributed a column to the Midland (Michigan) Daily News about the connection between wildfire smoke and climate denial in August 2025. His column ended, “It’s hard to express the deep sadness I shared with my son, looking over the lake that I love, watching a blood-red sun sink in a cloud of toxic smoke. Think about what this means for you and your children. Then, thank a climate change denier.”
