Presented at GRC 2025!

This July, I had the honor of presenting at the 2025 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Chemical Education Research. My talk, “Mapping Student Perceptions of Chemistry Labs: A Shift from Qualitative to Quantitative Approaches,” focused on exploring how students interpret and experience chemistry labs and how those experiences can be captured through a survey.

Standing in front of the GRC community, I shared how my work has evolved from deep, qualitative inquiry into student narratives to the development of frameworks that allow for broader, more scalable insights using quantitative tools. This shift isn’t about leaving stories behind instead it’s about finding ways to honor complexity while reaching more learners.

Huge thanks to everyone who asked questions, offered feedback, and pushed my thinking forward. And shoutout to Monmouth University for supporting this work and the students whose voices helped shape this research.

I left the conference energized and deeply inspired by the work happening in chemistry education research spaces.

Stay tuned, there’s much more to come!

Natalie first Poster presentation

We’re proud to celebrate our research student, Natalie Gil-Arcos, who presented her first research poster at the CLEAR 2025 Symposium, an online conference dedicated to innovative laboratory teaching in chemistry.

Her poster, titled "A Snapshot of Chemistry Instructor Knowledge of Green Chemistry Topics in the Laboratory Curriculum", examined how familiar higher education instructors are with green chemistry concepts and how often these topics are integrated into lab courses. This work is particularly timely as more institutions aim to embed sustainability into undergraduate chemistry education.

Natalie’s project, conducted in collaboration with Beyond Benign, drew from the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform (TCSR) model to explore how personal, contextual, and instructional factors influence topic adoption in the lab. Survey results highlighted that instructors were most familiar with chemical safety, green chemistry principles, and chemical hazard assessment and safer alternatives. However, life cycle impacts of chemicals and toxicity concepts were less frequently understood and implemented—revealing potential areas for faculty development.

We’re thrilled to see Natalie take this important step as a researcher, and we’re excited about the impact her work can have in supporting broader adoption of green chemistry education.