3205 Yosemite Ave.
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El Cerrito, CA 94530
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(510) 524-6167
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bmendez@ssl.berkeley.edu
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http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/bmendez
University of California, Berkeley, CA
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Doctor of Philosophy in Astronomy & Astrophysics December 2002
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Master of Arts in Astronomy & Astrophysics May 2000
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
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Bachelor of Science in General Physics and May 1997
Astronomy & Astrophysics
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Bachelor of Musical Arts in Saxophone Performance May 1997
Education & Public Outreach Scientist
University of California, Berkeley, CA 2002 – Present
Scientist member of the Science Education Gateway program (SEGway), funded by NASA and the
UC Berkeley Interactive University Project. SEGway is part of the Center for Science Education at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (CSE@SSL). CSE@SSL is a group of scientists, educators, and staff who conduct science education research and implement education and outreach programs on a national scale. CSE@SSL collaborates with schools of Education, science departments, NASA missions, school districts, science museums, and planetaria.
Instructor
University of California, Berkeley, CA. Summer 2002, Summer 2000
Taught Summer Session course, Introduction to General Astronomy . Managed all aspects of the course. Designed syllabus and course website. Prepared and delivered daily lectures. Wrote weekly homework sets and prepared solutions. Created and graded exams. Designed and graded class projects.
Instructor
University of California, Berkeley, CA. Fall 2000, Fall 2001
Taught The Art of Teaching Astronomy , a seminar-style course for new astronomy Graduate
Student Instructors. Served as a mentor for the new instructors. Managed all aspects of the course.
Constructed syllabi of topics and led discussions. Provided instructors feedback on their teaching through in-class practice teaching, personal observation, and videotaping of their classes. Created of a repository of teaching resources for Graduate Student Instructors.
Instructor
Academic Talent Development Program,
University of California, Berkeley, CA. Summer 2001
Taught two-weeks of a six-week course on Astronomy for high school students. Focused on the development of modern scientific methodology in the context of astronomy. Constructed a syllabus, composed daily lesson plans, wrote homework problem sets and solutions, and graded student work.

Graduate Student Instructor
University of California, Berkeley, CA. Fall 1999, Spring 2001
Graduate Student Instructor for Introduction to Astrophysics , an introductory course in astrophysics for prospective astronomy majors taught by professors Andrew Melatos (1st Semester) and Geoff
Marcy (2nd Semester). Led discussion sections, wrote homework sets and solutions, conducted exam review sessions, graded exams, maintained class website, and saw to administrative tasks.
Volunteer Astronomer
Project ASTRO, Berkeley, CA. 1998 - 2001
Collaborated with teachers of the 4 th
and 5 th
grades in developing an astronomy curriculum for the school year. Made visits to the classrooms to give presentations and assist in teaching astronomy units.
Graduate Student Instructor
University of California, Berkeley, CA. Fall 1997, Spring 1998
Graduate Student Instructor in Introduction to General Astronomy. Taught with professors Leo
Blitz and Alex Filippenko. Maintained class website; wrote homeworks, exams, and solution sets; taught weekly discussion sections; and saw to sundry administrative tasks.
Content Developer
Windows to the Universe, University of Michigan, and NASA, Ann Arbor, MI. Winter 1997
Development of the Universe section of the Windows to the Universe educational website. Involved in HTML programming and writing of hyperdocuments on astronomical topics.
Volunteer Scientist
The Mad Scientist Network 2000 – Present
Answer Internet users' questions about astronomy and astrophysics. Answers are designed to be accessible by a general audience. Questioners span all demographics.
Volunteer
Student Astronomical Society, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 1994 - 1997
President, Secretary, and member of this student-run society. Organized and participated in regular public observing nights at University of Michigan's Angell Hall Observatory. Designed educational inreach program to bring local middle school students to the University and participate in hands-on learning sessions about astronomy.
Volunteer
Society of Physics Students, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 1994 - 1997
Member of this student-run society. Participated in educational inreach programs. Performed demonstrations and experiments designed to encourage interest in physics.
Private Instructor
Traverse City, MI and Ann Arbor, MI. 1991 – 1995
Instructed 6 th
- 12 th
grade students in saxophone performance. Worked with students individually to develop both their technical and artistic performance skills.

Section Coach
Plymouth-Canton Marching Band, Plymouth, MI. 1994
Coached 30+ high school saxophone students in music to be performed in their marching band.
Helped individuals with specific playing issues.
Saxophone Workshop Jazz Instructor
Interlochen Arts Camp and All-State at Interlochen, Interlochen, MI.
Instructed ~15 high school aged students in Jazz improvisation on saxophone.
Summer 1993
Graduate Student Researcher
University of California, Berkeley, CA 1998 - 2002
Ph.D. dissertation, Advisor: Marc Davis, professor of Physics and Astronomy. A project to study the velocity field of local galaxies using the tip of the red giant branch to measure distances.
Acquired and processed CCD image data of local galaxies using the Keck Observatory and the
Hubble Space Telescope. Developed software in IDL to reduce and analyze data.
Summer Intern
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Summer 1997
Research Advisor: David Leisawitz. Project to determine the characteristics of stellar populations embedded in massive Galactic star-forming regions. Developed software in IDL to reduce and analyze near-infrared images in J , H , and K bands. Constructed false-color mosaics of the images.
Research Assistant
Michigan Spectral Catalogue Project, Ann Arbor, MI. Fall1996 - Spring 1997
Assisted in the publishing of the Fifth Volume of the Michigan Spectral Catalogue. Wrote
FORTRAN 77 programs to read catalogue data, and perform typesetting using LaTeX.
Summer Intern
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD. Summer 1996
Research Advisor: David Soderblom. Project studying the chromospheric activity in nearby solartype stars as a way to estimate their ages. Reduced CCD echelle spectra data using scientific software (IRAF: Image Reduction and Analysis Facility). Extracted and analyzed over 200 stellar spectra. Oral presentation of work given at the end of the summer.
Research Assistant
NSF Fellowship, Summer Research Opportunities Program,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 1995 - 1997
B.S. thesis, Advisor: Patrick Seitzer, professor of Astronomy. Project to establish precise CCD astrometric methods and use them to measure the proper motion of the Galactic globular cluster
Palomar 15. Acquired and reduced CCD image data from the 1.3-meter telescope at the MDM
Observatory, Kitt Peak, AZ.. Used scientific software to measure stellar positions. Developed
FORTRAN software to carry out statistical analyses. Presented a poster paper of the research at the
187th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Mendez, B.; Davis, M.; Newman, J.; Madore, B. F.; Freedman, W. L.; Moustakas, J., The
Enigmatic Local Hubble Flow: Probing the Nearby Peculiar Velocity Field with Consistent
Distances to Neighboring Galaxies.
2003. American Astronomical Society Meeting 201, #23.06D;
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 34, #4
Mendez, B.; Davis, M.; Moustakas, J.; Newman, J.; Madore, B.F.; Freedman, W.L. Deviations from the Local Hubble Flow. I. The Tip of the Red Giant Branch as a Distance Indicator. 2002.
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 124, Issue 1, pp. 213-233 .
Leisawitz, D.; Digel, S. W.; Guo, Z.; Mendez, B.; Hanson, M. M. A Study of the Infrared Spectral
Energy Distributions of H II Regions. 1998. Star Formation with the Infrared Space Observatory,
24-26 June 1997, Lisbon, Portugal, edited by Joao Yun and Rene Liseau, Publisher: ASP, as volume 132 of ASP Conference Series. P. 101.
Guo, Z.; Digel, S.; Hanson, M.; Leisawitz, D.; Mendez, B .
JHK Observations of Star Formation
Regions . 1997. American Astronomical Society, 191 st
AAS Meeting, #06.07; Bulletin of the
American Astronomical Society, Vol. 29
Mendez, B.; Seitzer, P.O. Precision CCD Astrometry . 1996. American Astronomical Society, 187 th
AAS Meeting, #73.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28
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Operating Systems: UNIX, Linux, MacIntosh, Microsoft Windows
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Languages: FORTRAN, HTML, IDL
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Data Processing: IRAF, SuperMongo, IDL, Excel
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Word Processing: Word, WordPerfect, LaTeX, FrameMaker, EMACS
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Image Manipulation: XV, Adobe Photoshop, The Gimp, Electric Eyes
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Miscellaneous: StarOffice, PowerPoint, Maple, software installation
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Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley, 2001
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Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for Minorities, 1997 – 2001
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GEM Consortium Ph.D. Fellowship, 1997 – 1999
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College Honors (Dean's List), University of Michigan, 1996 – 1997
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Inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma physics honors society, 1997
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Cutcheon Travel Award, Honors Program, University of Michigan, 1996
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Scholar Recognition Award, University of Michigan, 1992 – 1996
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Disabled American Veterans Scholarship, 1992

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American Astronomical Society (AAS)
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American Geophysical Union (AGU)
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California Science Teachers Association (CSTA)
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Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)