Stephen Case

B.S., 2005, Olivet Nazarene University
M.A., 2007, University of Mississippi
Doctoral work, University of Notre Dame

During Professor Case’s time as a student at Olivet, he worked as a planetarium operator and gained experience on both opto-mechanical and digital projectors. He brings his cross-disciplinary background to science instruction and planetarium show development. He has taught courses in astronomy, his first love in academics. Today, he is the director of Strickler Planetarium on Olivet’s campus.

As director, he oversaw the complete refurbishment and update of Strickler Planetarium from a slide-based analogue projection system to a full-dome digital system. These changes greatly enhanced the planetarium's capabilities and turned it into a powerful multimedia instructional tool.

He writes the “Skywatch” monthly astronomy column for “The Kankakee Daily Journal” and has written a planetarium show review column for "The Planetarian: quarterly journal of the International Planetarium Society."

In 2011, he was a presenter on double star astronomy for the History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio; and the Biennial Workshop on the History of Astronomy, University of Notre Dame.

He served as coordinator for the 2009 Great Lakes Planetarium Association Illinois state meeting; on the steering committee for the 2008 International Planetarium Society Conference, Chicago; and as a delegate to the 2006 National Science Foundation’s National GK-12 Conference, Washington, D.C.

While working on his master’s degree at the University of Mississippi, he was an NSF GK-8 fellow. As a member of the Center for Math and Science Education, he developed a science curriculum for area elementary and middle school classrooms.

His interests include the historical and cultural aspects of the physical sciences. While at the University of Mississippi, he conducted research on the Millington-Barnard Instrument Collection, a collection of scientific instruments assembled before the Civil War.