Research Team Draft 2
SEPAL Visiting Scholars
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Julia Smithsmith@hnu.edu About MeJulia Smith is a tenured Professor of Biological Sciences at Holy Names University in Oakland. Julia completed a B.A. in Biology at Carleton College in 1983. Her Master’s thesis, at the University of Oklahoma, investigated a woodpecker hybrid zone. In 1993 Julia completed her Ph.D. studying phenotypic plasticity in Song Sparrows at the University of California at Berkeley in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Research ProjectAs part of a sabbatical leave in 2009, Julia will be working at SFSU in collaboration with SEPAL researchers to: 1) develop a baseline estimate of student mastery of performance objectives in Holy Names University biology courses, 2) explore whether inquiry-based pedagogy results in greater mastery and retention of performance objectives in biology courses, and 3) examine whether inquiry-based methods may be an effective tool promoting the participation and achievement of under-represented minorities in biology. |
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Natalia CaporaleAbout MeComing Soon Research ProjectComing Soon
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Stephen IngallsAbout MeComing Soon Research ProjectComing Soon
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SEPAL Postdoctoral Fellows
Current Master’s Students
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Hibba Ashrafhashraf32@gmail.com About MeI was born in Phoenix, AZ, and quickly moved to Fremont, CA, where I’ve lived for 22 years. I earned my undergraduate degree in June 2011 from the University of California at Davis and received a B.S. in Psychology with an emphasis in Biology. In my free time I like spending time with family and friends, trying new foods, traveling (even if that just means around the Bay Area!), being outdoors, and doing anything else that keeps me from wedding planning! Research ProjectI am interested in learning why students switch out of biology majors. Studies show that increasing the retention rate of STEM students from 40 to 50% in the next decade can help our current economic and workforce issues. As a switcher myself, I find that many students in biology classrooms tend to feel unengaged, overwhelmed, and alienated. My goal is to learn students’ factors that led them to leave biology, and use this information to see if we can help change these ideas and keep them from making that switch. |
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Kathryn Danielsonkdanielson2@gmail.com About MeKathryn earned her undergraduate degree in May 2009 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Integrative Biology, with a minor with the Environmental Fellows Program. Kathryn moved to San Francisco in June 2009 to pursue her dream of living by and studying the Pacific Ocean. She worked as a teacher and naturalist at Aquarium of the Bay, which yielded her first experiences with teaching and the field of marine biology environmental education. She currently works as a science instructor aboard a 90 foot research vessel, the Robert G. Brownlee, for the environmental education non-profit Marine Science Institute in Redwood City. She firmly believes in the power of exploratory, hands-on science education outside the four walls of the classroom and aims to help people of all ages and backgrounds explore and appreciate the natural world that surrounds our everyday lives. She loves baseball games, riding her bike Ricardo, vintage clothes shopping, and trying new recipes in the kitchen! Research ProjectMy research with SEPAL investigates how different emerging experts, specifically undergraduate students at SFSU in various science disciplines such as marine biology, chemistry, and environmental studies, conceptualize ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is often referred to as climate change’s ‘Other CO2 Problem’, and I will be exploring how students in these different disciplines apply their academic expertise to a contemporary climate change topic. Some preliminary research has been done regarding how the general public conceptualizes ocean acidification, but little research has addressed how emerging scientists from different fields will apply their expertise to solve this real world problem through their careers in research, policy, and education. By using both written surveys and videotaped interview methods developed by former SEPAL research that explored SFSU undergraduate conceptions of climate change and the Greenhouse Effect, I will further ‘dive’ into different undergraduates understanding of ocean acidification. |
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Paul Nagamipnagami@gmail.com Research ProjectIn teaching, we hope to train our students to recognize the fundamental principles that underlie biological problems. However, it is unclear when and how biology students begin to recognize these principles in context. Do undergraduate biology majors interpret biological questions in a different way than non-majors? How do experts and developing experts, such as biology faculty and graduate students, make sense of biology questions? To explore these problems, I am asking graduate students to complete a card-sorting task in which they categorize questions based on underlying principles. As students complete this task, they will explain their reasoning, providing better insight into how developing biologists structure their knowledge. |
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Stephanie Malmgrenstephm20@mail.sfsu.edu About Me:I was born and raised in Orange, CA but have done a lot of moving around in the last eight years or so. I graduated from UCLA in 2006 with a B.A. in Political Science with the goal of going to law school. Instead of doing that, I entered the Peace Corps and spent a year plus in West Africa in a country called Niger as a Community Health Education volunteer. I lived in a mud hut with no running water and no electricity and loved every minute of it. Living in the desert though made me realize how much I love the ocean so when I came back I re-enrolled in school and got a B.S. in Marine Biology from UNC Wilmington in 2012. It was during this time that I realized that I wanted to teach community college, as I was a product of that system for both of my degrees, and what led me ultimately to the SEPAL lab at SFSU. I believe community college teaching is a special kind of teaching because you are working with such a diverse set of students from all walks of life. Not only are you equipping them with the knowledge tools they need to excel in their chosen path, but you are a part of a stepping stone to a better future, whether it’s a tech degree that lets them work in a lab or it’s on to a four year institution and beyond. In my spare time, I love to be outside, especially at the beach (though the SF area beaches are too cold for my blood), hiking, riding my bike, or walking my dog around the park. Research Project: Coming SoonOver the past couple decades, teaching techniques in the biological sciences has been encouraged to shift away from traditional lecture based, transmission style teaching to more student centered “scientific teaching” in which students are encouraged to think about and learn science with the same creativity and rigor that scientists approach their research. Many programs have been developed to help biology teachers achieve this transition buy giving them tools to use when planning their classes. One such program is the CCB FEST training program run through the SEPAL lab and of which I am an alumni trying to utilize these tools in my classroom. As an alumnus, I am interested to know if going through this training actually translates to changes in teaching practices in the classroom. My research question is: To what extent are instructors and students perceptions aligned about how frequently innovative teaching techniques are employed in the classroom learning environment? My goal is to see if there is alignment or misalignment in perceptions of instructors and students and try to figure out what this means in the broader sense. |
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Lisa TurkLisa.m.turk@gmail.com About Me: I grew up surfing in Southern California until I moved to San Francisco where I fell in love with the beauty of the outdoors while earning BAs in Earth Science and Spanish here at SFSU. In my free time I enjoy rock-climbing, backpacking, Mark Twain and developing my novice skills in photography. Research Project:My undergraduate education focused on climate change, a controversial topic that scientists and nonscientists often interpret differently. This got me thinking about how people with different backgrounds apply scientific reasoning in a real world context. My project looks at how populations with a range of biology expertise understand and explain genetically modified organisms, another real world topic represented in many different contexts. |
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Elijah CombsOn Leave Degree: Master’s Degree in Microbiology Research ProjectResearch in cognitive psychology and science education has shown that “novices” in a discipline perform card-sorting tasks differently than “experts.” Card-sorting tasks require an individual to take a set of word problems and put them into groups based upon the similarities between the problems. Using a card-sorting methodology designed to investigate biology expertise, I will be collecting evidence from a large number of non-biology majors. In addition, I will be performing think-aloud interviews with individual subjects – both biology and non-biology majors – to further probe how they approach the biology card-sorting task. In particular, participants will be asked to perform this sorting task multiple times repetitively to investigate whether participants choose card-sorting categories and structures based on trivial considerations, or by the knowledge structure reasons hypothesized previously. |
Recent SEPAL Graduates & Alums
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Carol Umanzorcumanzor@dons.usfca.edu About MeI’m very passionate about education especially in public schools. I feel that access to a quality education is one of the most valuable opportunities a student can have. My goal is to become an educator and provide students with the best possible education. Research ProjectMy research will focus on the experiences of women of color in biology. I want to learn more about their personal accomplishments and struggles in biology as women of color. Hopefully my research will lead to some answers as to why numbers of women of color in biology are so low and possibly pinpoint ways to change that. |
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Lakisha Witzellwitzel@mail.sfsu.edu Research ProjectI am using video taped interviews to investigate elementary age students’ perceived benefits of having scientists in their classrooms. The 4th and 5th grade students interviewed had scientists visit their classroom as part of a partnership between graduate students in the sciences at the University of California, San Francisco and elementary school teachers within the San Francisco Unified School District. Substantial amounts of time and resources are devoted to partnership programs every year throughout the United States and it is hypothesized that the benefits to a student working with scientists are tremendous. My goal is to provide evidence directly from the 4th and 5th grade students involved that this is, in fact, the case. |
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Courtney Scottcourtneylscott@hotmail.com About MeCourtney received a double major in Art and Biology from Pitzer College. Following graduation, Courtney worked for World Wildlife Fund in Chile developing a hands-on environmental education program. Once returning to California, Courtney worked for Save The Bay and Marine Science Institute. Currently, Courtney is working toward her master’s degree as a SEPAL graduate student and working in the exhibits department at the California Academy of Science (CAS). Research ProjectCourtney’s research will investigate how experiencing the new CAS Philippine Coral Reef Exhibit influences Bay Area Filipinos’ ideas toward environmental conservation. To conduct this research, Courtney will collect pre- and post-assessment responses from Bay Area Filipinos’ before and immediately following their viewing of the exhibit. In addition, a subset of these subjects will be interviewed ~1-3 months following their viewing experience to gauge their enduring impressions. This research has the potential to provide insight into Bay Area Filipinos’ understanding of environmental conservation and the impact of visiting the CAS Philippine Coral Reef Exhibit on these views. |
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Michelle Krokmkrok@sfsu.edu About MeMichelle is currently obtaining an M.S. in physics & astronomy at SFSU where she teaches undergraduate astronomy laboratories. Michelle has experience in planetarium presenting and has participated in astronomy education efforts at the Chabot Space & Science Center, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C., and the Stardome Observatory in Auckland, New Zealand. She also completed a B.A. in math with a minor in astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. Research ProjectCurrently Michelle is working on a thesis under the supervision of Dr. Adrienne Cool (SFSU astronomy), Dr. Kimberly Tanner (SFSU SEPAL Director) and Dr. Ed Prather (University of Arizona’s Center for Astronomy Education). Her thesis is the creation and evaluation of five introductory astronomy laboratories that utilize the research-based curricular design approach called the 5E Model and incorporate the use of a planetarium. The overarching learning objectives of the labs are that students will be able to 1) characterize the location and appearance of things in the night sky using compass direction, altitude, magnitude and angles between stars, and 2) predict the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and stars as seen from Earth. These abilities are valuable as they allow students to make sense of what they see in the sky on a daily basis. In addition to astronomy education research, Michelle is working with Dr. Andisheh Mahdavi (SFSU astronomy) on determining dark matter profiles of galaxy clusters. |
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Elizabeth Politoefriebrg@sfsu.edu About MeElizabeth obtained an undergraduate degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in math and science at San Francisco State University. It was her intention to become an elementary school teacher, and it was during this time that she took her first course in meteorology, which morphed her childhood fascination into a full-blown passion. After completing her undergraduate degree in 2003, she re-entered school as a masters’ student in the Department of Geosciences. Since then, she has completed all the undergraduate coursework in Atmospheric Science, and is now working on her masters’ project. Research ProjectStudent conceptions of weather phenomena across multiple cognitive levels. Meteorological content is presented in K-12 educational standards and in university general education courses, yet little research has been done to explore how students conceptualize weather phenomena. My project aim is to use a two-phase approach to identify conceptions and alternative conceptions concerning wind, fog, and tornadoes among middle school students, university non-meteorology majors, and meteorology majors. Each phase of the project—written assessments and videotaped interviews—will drive the next phase with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of student ideas. By identifying students’ alternative concepts about weather, scientists and educators can create experiences that will help students move their viewpoint to be more scientific. Elizabeth’s Links |
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Jeff Schinskeschinskejeff@deanza.edu About MeJeff completed his M.S. in Ecology and Systematic Biology from SFSU in fall of 2007. He previously received his B.S. in Marine Biology and B.A. in Music Performance (saxophone) from UCLA in 2001. Jeff currently teaches biology at De Anza College in Cupertino, coordinates SEPAL’s community college teaching square, and collaborates with SEPAL on various programs to enhance science education at the undergraduate level. Research ProjectEver since 6th grade, Jeff has wondered how there could possibly be so many shapes, sizes, and colors of marine fish on Earth. This wonderment led him to work in Eric Routman’s lab at SFSU, where he investigated speciation and population genetics in fish. Jeff’s thesis work focused on the diamond turbot, an estuarine flatfish living off California and Mexico. While completing this work, Jeff participated in the GK-12 program through SEPAL. The idea of the science classroom as a venue for data collection fascinated Jeff, and he has since launched numerous classroom research projects. He is particularly interested in formative assessment, teamwork in large lecture classes, and the detection of student misconceptions. Jeff’s Links |
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Rebecca Fulopmsfulop@hotmail.com About MeRebecca possesses a Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience & Behavior from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and a teaching credential from Mills College in California. She has four years of high school science teaching experience in the San Francisco Unified School District. She is currently a master’s degree candidate in the SEPAL laboratory at SFSU conducting research on students’ and teachers’ perceptions around learning and the brain. Rebecca is interested in how high school students and their science teachers conceive of a topic that is on one hand as old as the human race and on the other a burgeoning field in its infancy—the human brain and neuroscience. Rather than getting at their superficial beliefs about this topic, their deeper conceptions will be probed about the brain, learning, memory, perception and personality. She will survey neuroscientists to develop a list of what they consider to be the most important concepts in neuroscience research today. She will develop a list of these emergent concepts from this process, and then she will probe high school biology teachers’ conceptions about neuroscience. Finally, she will probe high school students’ conceptions about the same topics. Rebecca’s Links
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Briana McCarthybrianamc@sfsu.edu About MeBriana received her M.S. in Ecology and Systematic Biology from SFSU in 2008, and her B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from UCSD in 2004. She teaches biology at Laney College, Berkeley City College, and De Anza College and also teaches at the Marine Science Institute. She continues to collaborate with SEPAL in research efforts. Research ProjectBriana investigated the assumption in the research literature that biology majors and environmental studies (ES) majors graduate as experts in their fields. She collected written responses to statements, such as “The greenhouse effect can be made smaller by planting trees,” from biology majors and ES majors. She found that ES majors provided more complete explanations of how photosynthesis and respiration impact the greenhouse effect. Upon interviewing a small subset of these students, she discovered that students generally struggled to piece together respiration, photosynthesis, and carbon cycling. Briana hopes her research will inform teaching at the college level and encourage teachers to help students’ structure their fragmented knowledge. Briana’s Links |
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Allison BuschAbout MeAllison began her dream job working with SEPAL in the summer in 2004. In 1999, after a challenging year teaching algebra and biology at Mission High School in the SFUSD, Allison decided that she “most definitely was not suited for teaching” and subsequently pursued graduate study in the SFSU Department of Biology, believing a career in hardcore field biology was her true calling. While a graduate student, Allison studied animal behavior under the supervision of Dr. Jan Randall, focusing on predator-prey communication systems. While in graduate school, to her surprise, after working as an NSF Graduate Teaching Fellow in SFUSD, Allison realized that she actually liked, maybe even loved, science teaching. Currently, as a lecturer in the SFSU College of Science and Engineering and the SEPAL Coordinator, Allison divides her energy between teaching science education coursework and professional development trainings, coordinating collaborative partnerships between SFSU scientific trainees and Bay Area K-12 teachers, and collecting and analyzing data on the impact these experiences have on scientific trainees. In her spare time, Allison spins a mean hula hoop and makes the best vegetarian enchiladas in the history of the world. Allison’s Links
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Jonathan BoxermanAbout MeJonathan received his Master of Science in Geoscience from San Francisco State University in May 2006. He embarked on a mission to study a little known geologic phenomenon called tafoni, a fantastic rock weathering pattern. While pursuing his geology research project, he was also a scientist partner teacher in GK-12. As a current doctoral student at Northwestern University, he hopes to continue investigating how people think and reason about geosciences concepts and scientific models in the Learning Sciences department at the school of education and social policy. Jonathan’s Links
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Jamie ChanAbout MeJamie started her career as a scientist studying marine biology at SFSU. She has over five years experience working in research environments ranging from clinical studies to molecular biology. She started her graduate degree studying the evolution of sea slugs (called nudibranchs) at the California Academy of Sciences. During her graduate career, she participated in SEPAL’s Graduate K-12 Teaching Fellows Program (GK-12). As a scientist partner she worked together with life science teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District to design and deliver hands-on, inquiry based science lessons. She has taught over 200 students in 10th grade biology and 7th grade life sciences. Jamie was intrigued with how her students learned science content in the classroom. Jamie became a research associate at SEPAL and performed a study of the Science views of 97 seventh grade students at an urban public middle school. This study became a chapter in her master’s thesis, which incorporated the use of written assessment data and individual video interviews. She was particularly interested in student’s science views in the context of religious and cultural beliefs. She currently lectures at SFSU and continues to do research with SEPAL. Jamie is currently interested in how students learn science at the college level and how gender and culture affects a student’s views of science. In her free time, Jamie is often found tide-pooling on the California coast and kissing large flaccid slugs who want nothing more than to be put back in the water. Jamie’s Links |
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