2019 Susan Gay Travel Scholarship Recipient
Angela Google
Middle Tennessee State University
Biography
Angela Google is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Sciences Education at Middle Tennessee State University, expected to complete her degree in May 2020. She began her career as an Academic Advisor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she also earned her B.S. and Master of Education degree in Secondary Education with the concentration of Natural Sciences. Inspired by four years of advising undergraduate STEM majors and teaching student success courses, she pursued her PhD to develop a deeper understanding of how undergraduate students overcome barriers to success in college STEM courses. Throughout her doctoral program, she has been the Graduate Research Assistant on an Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) State funded grant to develop middle school mathematics teacher’s statistical knowledge and pedagogical practices, while working with her faculty mentors, Dr. Jennifer Lovett and Dr. Ryan Seth Jones. She has taught STEM teacher preparation courses as well as introductory biology laboratory courses. She has had the opportunity to present both regionally and nationally on at-risk undergraduate student preparedness for introductory STEM courses, pre-service STEM teachers’ evolution of conceptualization, pre-service teachers scientific epistemological views, and integrating scientific and statistical investigations in the classroom. Currently, her dissertation research focuses on undergraduate students’ perceptions of sense-making tasks in large lecture biology classrooms.