2025 Awardee - Stephen R. Lindberg, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

Stephen R. Lindberg has been awarded the 2025 Bob Christman Award by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.

Steve Lindberg has been an adjunct instructor in the Department of Geosciences and the Environment at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Pennsylvania since 1997. He has been teaching geoscience courses since 1978, and following retirement from public education in 2012, Steve was able to increase his course load at Pitt-Johnstown and spend more time pursuing his interests in geology; especially invertebrate paleontology and the regional geology of western Pennsylvania. His courses at Pitt-Johnstown have included Physical Geology, Astronomy, Meteorology, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Prehistoric Life, and Geologic Field Methods. Steve has been a member of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers since 1992; the same year he was awarded the eastern section's Outstanding Earth Science Teacher for Pennsylvania. He has served as president for the associations eastern section four times, and is currently the section president for 2025-2026. He previously hosted two eastern section meetings at the Pitt-Johnstown campus, and most recently organized the eastern section May, 2023 meeting held in Ithaca, New York and served as field trip leader for the three day conference. Steve also organized and hosted the spring, 2024 eastern section conference held in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. He is a member of the Geological Society of America and attends the northeastern section meetings on a regular basis. Steve served as a field trip leader and speaker during the 2021 Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologists field trips; "Geology of Ohiopyle State Park and the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania" and again for the 2024 conference, "Piedmont and South Mountain Geology in Southcentral Pennsylvania" in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In November of 2023, Steve hosted and assisted in organizing the Pennsylvania chapter of the Friends Of Mineralogy for their annual symposium at the Pitt-Johnstown campus. He routinely arranges field trips for Pennsylvania rock and mineral clubs to the New Paris Limestone Quarry in Bedford County, Pennsylvania; which serves as a geoscience educational site. Some of his more recent geologic excursions include assisting on the Pitt-Johnstown Geology Club spring break field trips which included Iceland in 2016, Scotland in 2018, Hawaii in March 2022; and most recently to Portugal in March, 2024. He routinely makes geoscience presentations to school students and other groups of individuals. Steve is also an instructor for OLLI; The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute administered through the University Of Pittsburgh main campus in Pittsburgh; and has taught a wide variety of on-line courses in the geosciences for the OLLI adult learning network. 

As a geologist and geoscience educator; Steve maintains a strong commitment to bring geoscience education to both students and others. He considers the geosciences an extremely valid part of scientific literacy and educating citizens about the importance of understanding earth systems, natural processes and the impact they have on our daily lives.