STEM Education Champions

Petra A. Robinson, PhD, Interim Director of the School of Leadership & Human Resource Development in the College of Human Sciences & Education, has been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program grant, totaling more than $550,000. Robinson will serve as Principal Investigator (PI) on the multi-year project, joined by Co-Principal Investigators Bethany Hager (Louisana A+ Schools, CHSE) and Zakiya Wilson-Kennedy, PhD (College of Science), with additional support from Golden Richard, PhD, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of LSU's Applied Cybersecurity Lab.

Through a partnership with LSU's T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, Jennifer Baumgartner, PhD, launched the Louisiana Early Childhood Teacher Oral History Project, where education undergraduate students collect stories and oral histories from Louisiana's early childhood teachers. To date, more than 100 interviews with early childhood teachers who work with children from birth to third grade have been conducted, creating an incredible repository of knowledge for current and future teachers, policy makers and early childhood researchers.

Ayala, a second-year doctoral student in the Lutrill and Pearl Payne School of Education, has been named Associate Editor of the National Association of Special Education Teachers' Special Educator e-Journal.

Ellis, associate professor of science/STEM education and associate director of secondary education initiatives in the LSU Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education, received the 2025 UTeach STEM Educators Association's Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award for his work with LSU's GeauxTeach STEM teacher preparation program.

To commemorate Workforce Development Month, LSU College of Human Sciences & Education, in partnership with the LSU Olinde Career Center, will host the first-ever CHSE Career Week from September 17-24, 2025.

The Tiger Teacher Pep Rally will take place on September 16, 2025, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Huey P. Long Field House Laura F. Lindsay Ballroom with LSU alumna Haleigh Bryant serving as the spirit leader.

LSU Social Research & Evaluation Center hosted 20 rising high school seniors from all over Louisiana for Shaping Futures: Mental Health Leaders of Tomorrow, a one-week intensive and immersive mental health workforce experience, from July 13 - 17, 2025. These students gained a heightened awareness of mental health careers, realistic exposure to mental health fields, and a deeper understanding of higher education.

In the wake of the 20th anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, LSU Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education professor, Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, PhD, is revisiting her research in the aftermath of the storm that provided access to literature and service-learning that prepared pre-service teachers to teach authentically in a time of widespread devastation.

Sulentic Dowell, professor in the LSU Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education, presented a featured writing workshop session to more than 100 teachers, librarians and educational leaders at the 2025 Joint Conference of the Iowa Reading Association and the Iowa Association of School Librarians.