Keynote Speaker 

Terrance Burgess, PhD is an Assistant Professor of science education in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. He holds a BA degree in Geological Sciences and a MA degree in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a PhD in Teaching and Curriculum (Science Education) from Syracuse University. Broadly, his research focuses on how engaging elementary youth of Color in participatory science learning influences their multiple identities within urban schools and promotes their activism within communities. His work utilizes qualitative methodologies to center youth’s voices as they engage in science learning to make sense of how they come to view themselves as scientists while also contending with their other identities as racialized students within their classroom spaces. Additional areas of his research explore how teacher education programs pursue racial equity through a networked improvement community. Prior to joining the faculty at Michigan State University, Burgess was a secondary science teacher in Durham, NC.