Team

Angela Calabrese Barton, PhD, Professor in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan

Angie asks: What is equitably consequential teaching and learning (in and outside STEM) for youth from historically marginalized communities — What forms does it take? What are its outcomes? How does it impact youth’s individual and collective development? What tools and practices might best support teachers in imagining and enacting such teaching, and in what ways? She recognizes teaching and learning as historicized, with outcomes including critical agency and social transformation (e.g., Gutierrez & Jurow, 2016). She unpacks questions from multiple standpoints/perspectives: student- and teacher-centered perspectives, through ethnographic and design-based research, in formal and formal settings, and in-the-moment and over time. Cutting across these efforts are deep attention to theory and participatory methodologies aimed at transforming the educational and social circumstances of students and their teachers in historically marginalized communities as a means of promoting social equity and learning.

Three related directions capture connections with teaching and teacher education and illustrate how she imagines her work moving forward: 1) Working within the intersection of formal/informal education in support of understanding and designing new possibilities for more equitably consequential teaching and teacher learning; 2) designing teaching learning tools and experiences that promote more expansive learning outcomes, such as critical agency, identity work, and social transformation (as grounded within expanding disciplinary expertise); and 3) designing and leveraging new methodologies for embracing authentic “research + practice” work that attends to practitioner and youth voice, and critically engages the goals of equity and justice. CV Available here

Edna Tan, PhD, Professor of Science Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Edna leads the GET Making Collaborative’s partner sites in the metropolitan area of Greensboro, North Carolina. She takes a critical, sociocultural approach in her work with youth and science teachers both in the classroom and informal science programs. Edna’s research and design work focuses on how youth from non-dominant backgrounds can be empowered to work with their teachers in creating hybrid spaces for meaningful science engagement, thereby authoring positive science identities and identity trajectories. CV available here

Day Greenberg, PhD, Research Scientist in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan

Day studies youth STEM experiences in partnership with science centers, museums, and community organizations. She examines learning and development as connected phenomena, centering youth efforts in contexts of racism, cishet patriarchy, and multigenerational poverty. Day develops new critical participatory and multidisciplinary qualitative approaches to accomplish this work, building on 13 years of out-of-school STEM design and teaching in science museums and centers, community organizations, summer programs, and science media.

Day also uses participatory design to expand institutional capacity for re-framing STEM education through a justice lens. The goal of this work is to affect systemic change with BIPOC youth and youth from low-income communities, by re-imagining and restructuring learning spaces, programs, and relationships for more equitable educational futures. Day received her PhD in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, specializing in Science Education and Qualitative Methods. 

Francisco Parra Camacho, PhD Student in Policy, Leadership, and Innovation, University of Michigan

Francisco’s interests include designing systems for surfacing community-sourced solutions to education for sustainability. He brings extensive practice-based knowledge from his experiences in teacher leadership development at a university and as a science teacher in various leadership roles for both the New York City Department of Education and Los Angeles Unified. Currently, he is a Community Codesign Lead for a Youth Sustainability Fellowship to serve the Michigan Saginaw Bay Area beginning in the summer of 2022.


Ti’Era Worsley, University of North Carolina Greensboro


Aerin Benavides, University of North Carolina Greensboro


Mez Perez, University of Michigan


Devon Riter, University of Michigan


Wisam Sedawi, University of Michigan


Margaret Mimi Owusu, University of Michigan


Gabriela Reznik, University of Michigan


Nyles Pollonais, University of Michigan


Hye Ri Mel Yang, University of Michigan


External Partner Scholars

Sinead Brien, PhD Student at Michigan State University
ReAnna Roby, PhD, Research Scientist at Vanderbilt University
Won Jung Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University
Katie Schenkel, PhD, Assistant Professor at San Diego State University
Sarah Keenan-Lechel, PhD, Regional Director at MiSTEM Network
Faith Brown Freeman, PhD, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Christina Restrepo Nazar, PhD, Assistant Professor at California State Los Angeles
Myunghwan Shin, PhD, Assistant Professor at California State University Fresno

1 comment

  1. Greetings! I am a PhD student and Graduate Assistant at the University of Louisville. I am amazed by the invincibility lab and I would like very much to visit MSU and meet as many of you as possible.
    I appreciate you contacting me.

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