Engaging Students in Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs)

Allan Feldman is Professor of Science Education in the College of Education at the University of South Florida (USF). Until recently he was Associate Director for Educational Innovation of the David C. Anchin Center, and while a faculty member at UMass was Associate Director of the university-wide STEM Education Institute. His scholarship includes a focus on the ways in which people learn to engage in science and engineering practices in apprenticeship situations, including middle and high school science classes, and research experiences for teachers (RETs) and for undergraduates (REUs). He also studies how inservice science teachers learn from their practice in a variety of subjects including physics, environmental education, and education for sustainability in formal and informal settings. Dr. Feldman has been PI and co-PI of 18 NSF projects, many of which have been in collaboration school districts, and with colleagues in the sciences and engineering. These include environmental studies of acid mine drainage, arsenic in the environment, algal biofuels, and water and wastewater treatment. He is lead author of the book “Teachers investigate their work: An introduction to action research across the professions”, which was published by Taylor & Francis in 2018. He was also co-editor of the book “Educating Science Teachers for Sustainability”, which was published in 2015 by Springer. Before receiving his doctorate, he taught middle and high school science for 17 years in public and private schools in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Dr. Lina Dahlberg is an Associate Professor of Biology at Western Washington University (WWU), in Bellingham Washington. She received her BS in Biology from Haverford College, after which she was a Fulbright Student at the University of Aarhus (Denmark). Lina received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Washington. Her postdoctoral research was performed at Tufts University, as part of the NIH-funded IRACDA program (Tufts TEACRS).  Lina teaches at all levels of WWU Biology Department’s Cell and Molecular curriculum, along with being an instructor for an HHMI-funded seminar course for first-year and transfer students who are interested in pursuing a STEM major.  Her research program covers projects in protein quality control at the endoplasmic reticulum of neurons, using C. elegans as a model and Discipline-Based Education Research on student learning in laboratory and research courses. Lina, as part of an interdisciplinary team, ran and assessed workshops designed to increase Inclusion and Social Mindfulness in STEM faculty (ISMs). In 2020-21, she was awarded both a Fulbright and American-Scandinavian Foundation grants to study ER-Associated Degradation at the University of Copenhagen.