Carmen Carrion, a postdoctoral fellow in the STELAR lab at Georgia Tech, has won the Jumki Basu Scholar Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). The award given by NARST, the largest science research and teaching association, supports and nurtures promising young scholars (advanced doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty) from underrepresented groups.

Carrion’s advisor is Joe Le Doux, associate professor, in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

The award is more than a financial stipend – it is intended to intellectually support the development of an emergent scholar’s program(s) of research and help scholars craft questions, strengthen their theoretical frameworks, and improve their research skills. Jumki Basu scholars are required to participate in the NARST Equity and Ethics committee sponsored pre-conference workshop before the annual international NARST conference. This year’s 2019 international conference will be held March 31 - April 3 in Baltimore, Maryland. Scholars are also invited to participate in other NARST events and to contribute to science education research, scholarship, and leadership more broadly.

Carrion received her degree in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in Science Education from Georgia State University. She is half Colombian and has grown up in a bicultural world. Her unique cultural perspective influenced her research. The majority of her research is in Title 1, low socioeconomic schools with high minority populations. Carrion is researching new interventions which may make science and engineering more accessible to all types of students but specifically minority students. Her current work is using school gardens as an avenue to facilitate science and engineering practices in middle school students. She hopes to continue her garden research with undergraduates here at Georgia Tech.