Summary

Welcome to my personal “professional” website! My goal is to connect with practitioners, researchers, funders, and others interested in building children’s STEM identities through family engagement. Here you’ll find recent news, summaries of my professional history, selected works, and links to some of the organizations I work with. My current efforts grow out of my role as the Dr. Eveleen Lorton Endowed Chair for Pedagogical Practice, Innovation and Excellence at the University of Miami in Florida.

In 2025, I received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)—the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. President on early-career researchers—for my groundbreaking work on the development of children’s identification with STEM fields. My research focuses on fostering children’s socioemotional development through family engagement in “everyday” STEM activities. These studies and programs highlight the voices of Latine children and families, and represent members from those communities as researchers, advisors, developers, and participants.

I have helped secure nearly $7.5 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI. In part, this funding supported the creation of the Talking Science Research & Development Group (Talking Science). Research findings from Talking Science have been published in several top education journals, including Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Physical Review – Physics Education Research. I also serve on advisory committees for projects and institutions supporting youth and family STEM identity development, many with a focus on multicultural and multilingual communities.

To learn more about Talking Science projects, visit: www.talkingscience.net

For consultations or other queries see contact page.