While asking faculty members to be on my graduate committee, I quickly drafted an email which outlined my career and its possible future directions. I am surprised by my short description and have included it in full.

I am sorry, I should have given you a little more background. I am a first-year graduate student in Dr. … Lab studying chemistry education research. I got my undergraduate degree in chemistry at … while also being undergraduate research assistant in Dr. … lab. My research at that time was on supporting students in mechanistic reasoning through prompt scaffolding, that is how I got introduced to your work.

I also got my teaching certificate for secondary education while at … Through that process I was introduced to Ambitious Science Teaching, and I challenged many assumptions I had about the purpose of secondary education and the role of expert knowledge in that space.

Right now, I am working on a project looking at supporting faculty in fulfilling their teaching responsibilities by developing materials and new evaluation models. We are attempting to support a culture change in our department, and it is not going well, but I am excited for the upcoming interviews to hear the faculty members perspectives.

I am also sitting in on a Green Chemistry project which I believe will occupy me for the remainder of my time at …. We are attempting to introduce socio-scientific issues around organic chemistry into an organic chemistry laboratory course. I see this as an opportunity to bring in many ideas I formed while in the teacher preparation program. Specifically bringing in socio-cultural issues to inform our curriculum and to be authentic to the lives of students in that process. Furthermore, I have thoughts about how the contextual factors of green chemistry issues may impact the mechanistic reasoning of students and how they can be supported.

JLS