Mohamed El Nagdi, a recent graduate of the STEM education doctoral program, successfully defended his thesis last week, “Issues of identity and equity in STEM education: STEM teachers’ identity and gender equity in STEM education.” His research sought to understand how STEM teachers view their work and the purpose of STEM education (identity) by looking at two STEM schools in the Midwest and one in his native Egypt. He also examined gender equity and STEM integration and their implications for STEM education as a global reform initiative.

El Nagdi enrolled in the PhD in STEM education program in order to gain a deeper insight into the growing shift in thinking about STEM education. His goals were to understand the challenges to reforming and modernizing STEM education and earn professional experience along with research skills by working in different educational settings. His goal post-graduation is to become an education professor and find ways to support STEM education in Egypt to ensure its sustainability.

He found support for his goals in the program from both faculty and peers in the doctoral program. His faculty advisor, Gill Roehrig, “provided seminal support in terms of the academic and research work,” he said, adding that the support of fellow graduate students were a major resource in the program, as well.

He gained experience as a research assistant on projects led by Roehrig, such as EngrTEAMS: Engineering to Transform the Education of Analysis, Measurement, and Science in a Team-Based Targeted Mathematics-Science Partnership to apply his academic work into an applied research project. “Working on different research projects and professional development programs were very effective in creating research opportunities that matched the research agendas of different doctoral students and also help address the local and international grand challenges,” he said of his experience.

Learn more about the doctoral program in STEM education.