Sara Brownell

ETT-Fellow 2019

Sara Brownell is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences and Director of the Research in Inclusive STEM Education Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona in the US. She is a neuroscientist turned full-time education researcher, who teaches undergraduate biology while studying biology education. In her research she uses both qualitative and quantitative data to better understand how undergraduate biology students learn and how instructors can develop more effective ways to teach. Among her areas of interest are e.g. how social identities impact the active learning in undergraduate biology and strategies to decrease students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution. Further, she is involved in developing a programmatic assessment at the biology department level articulating what general biology majors should know about the five core concepts in biology (evolution, structure function, information flow, pathways and transformations of energy and matter, and systems) that were identified by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011 upon graduating.