Bulletin Board

Sachmpazidi delivers an invited talk at Central Michigan University to discuss using research on departmental change to address emerging challenges in physics education.

Sachmpazidi's PER Lab, including Verostek, Coldren and two undergraduate researchers, Claar and Kunz, publishes four peer reviewed conference proceedings at the Physics Education Research Conference 2025.

The Fall 2025 RIT University Magazine featured "Manifesting Quantum", which highlights quantum education efforts at RIT being led by CASTLE members.

Charlie Lusignan, Aaron McGowan, and Ben Zwickl authored two book chapters on integrating computing into the upper-division physics laboratory curriculum. The book was edited by Marcos (Danny) Caballero and published by the Institute of Physics.

 Zwickl and former CASTLE member Dina Zohrabi Alaee received and NSF award 2500743 "Collaborative Research: Developing a Causal Map Assessment Tool for Undergraduate Career Interest Formation and Decision-Making"

Dina Newman published 3 articles in the August 2025 issue of the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education. Two were with Kate Wright and Crystal Uminski on the topic of visual literacy, while the third was with external collaborators on the topic of instructional reform in biology.

All 4 postdocs from the CASTLE postdoc program have started faculty positions! Christian Cammarota is now a Lecturer at Yale University, Mike Foster is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State, Alia Hamdan is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Crystal Uminski is an Assistant Professor at Towson University!

Ben Zwickl, collaborating with researchers at Fisk University (Qingxia Li, Ololade Adetula) and John Hopkins University (Ebony McGee), published "Impacts of an Industrial Partnership with a Historically Black University on the Computing Career Decisions of Black Undergraduate Students" in ACM Transactions on Computing Education. The work built from an NSF BCSER project (PI: Qingxia Li) for which Zwickl was an advisor.

Dr. Sachmpazidi has published an article along with the Physics Education Research group at the Ohio State University led by Dr. Cochran in Physical Review - Physics Education Research titled "Understanding familial capital and its implications for physics graduate programs"

Sachmpazidi co-authors article in the Physical Review - Physics Education Research journal on the importance of student familial capital and implications for physics graduate programs.

Postdoc Andi Piña and Professor Ben Zwickl were on the organizing committee for the 2025 Physics Education Research Conference in Washington, D.C.

Diana Sachmpazidi and Mike Verostek gave talks at AAPT in DC: “Beneath the Surface: Documenting Culture to Drive Change in Physics Graduate Programs” and “Improving the Experiences of Physics PhD Students by Supporting their Search for a Research Group.”

Postdocs Christian Cammarota, Mike Foster, and Mike Verostek, guided by PIs Tony Wong and Ben Zwickl published an article titled "Social Computational Literacy in Practice: A Framework Describing STEM Researchers' Communication" in the Journal for STEM Education Research.

Professor Ben Zwickl and Dina Zohrabi Alaee (Coastal Carolina University) published "Exploring subfield interest development in undergraduate physics students through social cognitive career theory" in Physical Review Physics Education Research.

Kate Wright and Dina Newman gave talks at SABER in Minneapolis: “Deceptively simple: Advanced biology students misunderstand foundational concepts of genetic inheritance represented in Punnett squares” and “Student Drawings Reveal Visual Literacy Gaps in DNA Representation.”

Crystal Uminski gave a talk at SABER in Minneapolis:  “Biology exams rarely use visual models to engage higher-order cognitive skills.”