4 Teams Receive 2022 Cottrell Scholar Collaborative Awards
Research Corporation for Science Advancement has awarded Cottrell Scholar Collaborative Awards to four new collaborative projects that emerged from discussions at the 2022 Cottrell Scholar Conference. The awards, of up to $25,000 each, will support efforts to improve undergraduate and graduate-level science education.
With more than 500 teacher-scholars at colleges and universities in the United States, Canada and Germany, the Cottrell Scholar community works across disciplines, and in partnership with national initiatives, on high-impact efforts to change the culture across academia. Cottrell Scholar Collaborative Award teams are made up of Cottrell Scholars, Fulbright-Cottrell Scholars and others who attend the annual conference.
The 2022 conference, “Creativity and Innovation in STEM Education,” was held July 6-8 in Tucson, Arizona.
These projects have received 2022 Cottrell Scholar Collaborative Awards:
Supporting Making to Align Research and Teaching (SMART): A Cottrell Collaborative
This project builds off an existing Cottrell collaborative project aiming to increase awareness of making, an emerging instructional practice where students learn a discipline (and enjoy enhanced creativity and self-espression) by creating shared physical and digital artifacts. The goal of this project is to support and document faculty training and adoption of making methods, as well as to generate examples of making activities in disciplines, such as chemistry and astronomy, that have not adopted this technique.
Lead Cottrell Scholar: Tim Atherton, physics, Tufts University
In collaboration with additional Cottrell Scholars:
Elisabetta Matsumoto, physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Carl Brozek, chemistry, University of Oregon
Charles Doret, physics, Williams College
Ben Feldman, physics, Stanford University
Infusing Computational Science Concepts into STEM Courses through Multidisciplinary Instructor Collaborative Networks
This project follows on a previous Cottrell Scholar Collaborative effort, Enhancing Science Courses by Integrating Python (ESCIP). The new project aims to create a centralized web resource based on the materials developed by faculty who attended ESCIP workshops virtually in 2020 and in-person in 2022. This resource will enable STEM faculty to collaboratively create and manage educational materials, including notebooks, exercise databases, and best practices guides.
Lead Cottrell Scholar: Davit Potoyan, chemistry, Iowa State University
In collaboration with additional Cottrell Scholars:
Tim Atherton, physics, Tufts University
Justin Caram, chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles
Jay Foley, chemistry, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Geoff Hutchinson, chemistry, University of Pittsburgh
Daniel Keedy, chemistry, City College of New York
Casey Londergan, chemistry, Haverford College
Tyler Luchko, physics, California State University, Northridge
Britt Lundgren, astronomy, University of North Carolina, Ashville
Dennis Perepelitsa, physics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Brenda Rubenstein, chemistry, Brown University
Brian Shuve, physics, Harvey Mudd
Juliane Simmchen, chemistry, Technische Universität Dresden
Grace Stokes, chemistry, Santa Clara University
Ruby Sullan, chemistry, University of Toronto, Scarborough
Christina Vizcarra, chemistry, Barnard College
Lowering Activation Barriers to Success in PChem (LAB-SIP): Towards Better Access to Creative Practice for Students in a Re-envisioned and Re-invigorated Physical Chemistry Curriculum
This project seeks to establish a community framework to rethink and redesign the intimidating and popularly stigmatized physical chemistry curriculum that is taught in most undergraduate chemistry programs in the United States. This collaborative, which envisions more flexible and outcomes-oriented PChem courses that would better serve students of all backgrounds, plans to organize a workshop to identify needs and establish consensus around learning objectives for PChem courses, build on the results of the workshop, and provide shared resources and concrete guidelines to support curricular transition.
Lead Cottrell Scholar: Casey Londergan, chemistry, Haverford College
In collaboration with additional Cottrell Scholars:
Carlos Baiz, chemistry, University of Texas at Austin
Rob Berger, chemistry, Western Washington University
Linda Columbus, chemistry, University of Virginia
Julio de Paula, chemistry, Lewis & Clark College
Kelling Donald, chemistry, University of Richmond
Stephen Fried, chemistry, Johns Hopkins University
Dmitri Kosenkov, chemistry, Monmouth University
Brenda Rubenstein, chemistry, Brown University
Grace Stokes, chemistry, Santa Clara University
Kana Takematsu, chemistry, Bowdoin College
The Cottrell Astronomy Network: Collecting and Distributing Resources to Support Undergraduate Astronomy Student Success
Ten Cottrell Scholars in astronomy and physics, facing increased student demand for genuine, in-depth research experiences but a lack of important resources (including time) to accommodate them, formed an informal collaboration at this year’s Cottrell Scholar Conference to pool student-focused educational resources they had developed. This group will convene in conjunction with next year’s conference to lay the groundwork for a summer undergraduate research exchange program and other efforts to share and scale creative solutions in educating a growing number of astronomy and physics students.
Lead Cottrell Scholar: Jessica Werk, astronomy, University of Washington
In collaboration with additional Cottrell Scholars:
Darcy Barron, physics, University of New Mexico
Rachel Bezanson, astronomy, University of Pittsburgh
Laura Blecha, physics, University of Florida
Laura Chomiuk, astronomy, Michigan State University
Carla Fröhlich, physics, North Carolina State University
Eilat Glikman, astronomy, Middlebury College
Britt Lundgren, astronomy, University of North Carolina, Ashville
Leslie Rogers, astronomy, University of Chicago
Ryan Trainor, astronomy, Franklin & Marshall College
