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We are proud to announce that our CASTLE REU in STEM Education Research alumni, Annabelle Li, is a 2025 Barry M. Scholarship Award winner!  This prestigious scholarship is awarded to undergraduate students who show exceptional promise in STEM and will likely go on to a career in research.  Annabelle is currently a neuroscience major at Smith College.  Way to go, Annabelle!

Ben Zwickl contributed to a workshop at the University of Colorado Boulder on forming a national center for quantum education. The outcomes of the workshop were published in the journal EJP Quantum Technology.

Tony Wong, assistant professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, along with mathematical modeling Ph.D. student Cameron Bundy, published “Analyzing Learning Assistant influence on STEM student success using logistic and hierarchical regression” in Contemporary Mathematics and Science Education.

CASTLE postdoc Alia Hamdan will start her new position as a Teaching Assistant professor of Physics at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill in Fall 2025. This permanent position includes teaching large lecture halls in a studio format, working with faculty and graduate students to develop active learning practices, and maintaining some physics education research.

M. Verostek, D. Sachmpazidi, C. Turpen, J. Petrella, and S. Lee, “Centering community input in the design of survey tools to empirically assess cultural change in physics departments,” presented at APS Global Physics Summit, Anaheim, CA, 16–21 March 2025 
Sachmpazidi, D., Turpen, C., Verostek, M., Petrella, J., Henderson, C., & Lee, S. (2025, March 16–21). Survey instruments to assess the student experience in physics: A data-driven approach to improve retention and inclusion. Presented at the APS Global Physics Summit, Anaheim, CA, United States.

Kierstin Muroski, Assistant Professor in ASL and interpreting education at NTID, and Dina Newman, Professor in the Gosnell School of Life Sciences, received an Advance grant to run workshops empowering faculty to develop strategies for self-promotion and networking. Together with Sarah Stager, Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State, they ran their first workshop, “Strategic Visibility: Define your Academic Identity & Develop your Professional Brand” at Penn State. A second workshop is planned for April 21st at RIT.
 

The physics education group (Graduate student: Namitha Pradeep; Post docs: Alia Hamdan, Andi Pina, Mike Verostek; Faculty: Diana Sachmpazidi, Ben Zwickl) present their work at APS global summit. Their talk investigated the current landscape of QISE courses in the US, quantum sensing through a textbook analysis,  graduate education in physics, methods to create a website to share data, and empathy in physics faculty. 

Drs. Dina Newman and Kate Wright, leaders of MBER, along with Ming Yang, assistant teaching professor at UC San Diego, and former REU student, Bryan Armpriest, published “Visual representations of energy and chemical bonding in biology and chemistry textbooks: A case study of ATP hydrolysis” in the journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education.

CASTLE postdoc Andi Piña was invited to give a talk on their work studying the landscape of quantum and quantum information science education across the United States. The talk reviewed their findings on the prevalence of quantum information science and engineering programs in higher ed as well as an overview of over 8,000 recorded courses that cover quantum.

CASTLE postdoc Crystal Uminski, along with her mentors Dina Newman and Kate Wright, published a paper, “Probing Visual Literacy Skills Reveals Unexpected Student Conceptions of Chromosomes” in CBE - Life Sciences Education.  The paper was also featured in the ASCB newsletter.

Ben Zwickl, Associate Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, gave a plenary talk on "Preparing students for a quantum future" at the winter meeting in St. Louis on Jan 19, 2025.