Research

My research interests are in the area of physics education, specifically undergraduate physics students and their (1) sense-making and metacognitive practices, and (2) ability to coordinate multiple representations of physics ideas and problems (representational fluency). I’m particularly interested in how these aspects of physics learning develop during undergraduate study and over the physics major. These skills are critical to success in physics and other STEM disciplines, and helping more students master these skills will improve STEM education for all and hopefully lead to greater participation of underrepresented groups in physics and STEM more broadly. I am involved in the Paradigms in Physics program, a novel upper-division physics program at Oregon State University and the Paradigms in Physics 2.0 project. I am also involved in the Raising Calculus to the Surface project, which has created a set of activities for multivariable calculus courses where students collaborate to discover and explore multivariable calculus concepts and geometric relationships. These activities involve the use of physical tools, including dry-erasable surfaces that represent functions of two variables. My aim is to create a set of surfaces that will be useful in introductory and upper-division physics courses.

Education

Ph.D., Physics, University of California San Diego

M.S., Physics, University of California at San Diego

B.S., Astrophysics, University of California at Los Angeles

Research areas