UW–Madison graduate student Cynthia Baeza, a PhD candidate with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, is a recipient of a 2024 Jhumki Basu Scholar Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST).
NARST is a global organization of professionals committed to the improvement of science teaching and learning through research.
The award, offered by the NARST Equity and Ethics Committee, recognizes Baeza’s experiences and research project as crucial to NARST’s mission to promote equity and justice-oriented science teaching and learning. The award letter states, they are “excited and encouraged that (Baeza’s) research, teaching, and service will significantly benefit myriad communities of students, teachers, caretakers, policymakers, schools, and so many others who are underrepresented or marginalized.”
Baeza’s dissertation research investigates equity in terms of racial and linguistic justice at the intersection of science and bilingual education. She studies the making of difference during science instruction in two-way dual language immersion (DLI) programs, drawing on a new theoretical framework to rethink how this problem has been understood over time.
The award includes funding for Baeza to attend NARST’s annual conference in Denver, Colorado, in March 2024 for a pre-conference workshop connecting with other 2024 Basu Scholars.