Dr Jennifer Albert is an Associate Professor in the Zucker Family School of Education and Director of the STEM Center of Excellence at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina but currently at the University of Canberra as a Fulbright Scholar working with the STEM Education Research Centre. She specialises in STEM educational research and evaluation with an emphasis on K-16 computer science education, science education, teacher professional development, and classroom implementation of STEM curriculum.

Dr Albert’s Fulbright research will investigate how the ELSA program, developed by SERC at UC, may help better prepare students to participate in hands-on STEM activities. Dr. Albert’s team, through funding from the National Science Foundation, created Mobile Maker Kits, curriculum designed in the US to meet national STEM standards and to engage students in interdisciplinary Making Practices. Each kit is designed around five pedagogical elements (hook, brainstorm, prototype, share, and synthesise), which facilitate teacher use of the kits, provide a structure to support student learning, and address lesson objectives across a minimum of three disciplines. (Jennifer Albert)