Experts: STEM Education

Ganley is an expert in math anxiety and understanding the social, cognitive, and affective factors related to math learning and achievement, with a specific interest in individual differences related to gender and income level. She has investigated factors such as teacher biases, stereotype threat, anxiety, working memory, and spatial skills as potential malleable factors that may be related to gender and income-level differences in mathematics achievement.

Hughes studies STEM identity (one’s belief that they fit the perception of a scientist and can be successful in their chosen field) of women and people of color who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. She uses an intersectional lens to study STEM identity both during a short term program (such as a summer camp) and over years of experiences. She mainly employs qualitative methods in her studies.

Hughes wrote about the importance of the role of teachers in shaping girls’ futures as coders for The Conversation. She also authored a piece for Scientific American about how a NASA-themed Lego set inadvertently played into damaging stereotypes.

Jaber researches students’ engagement and emotions in learning science, both in face-to-face and in online settings. She also examines ways to support pre-service and in-service teachers in their efforts to promote students’ engagement through responsive teaching.

Perez-Felkner’s research uses developmental and sociological perspectives to examine how young women and men’s social contexts influence their college and career outcomes. She focuses on the mechanisms that shape entry into and persistence in institutions and fields in which they have traditionally been underrepresented. In particular, she investigates racial-ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic disparities in entry to scientific career fields, in the U.S. and globally.

Razzouk, the director of the Learning Systems Institute, is an expert in the design and development of technologies and innovations for teaching and learning. In addition, he is an expert in curriculum development, STEM education,  teacher professional development and large-scale project management. As the Florida Center for Research in STEM director, he collaborates with multi-disciplinary teams of content and technology experts, instructional designers, STEM teachers and researchers to improve and support high-quality education in Florida and worldwide.

Wofford is an expert on graduate education and graduate student development, STEM higher education, and mentoring relationships in higher education. She conducts research that examines structures of inequity across students’ pathways to and through graduate-level degrees. Dr. Wofford is also a facilitator for the Equity in Graduate Education consortium (housed at the University of Southern California).