Welcome — Let's Build Something Here Together

Hello, and thank you for stopping by!

I'm Tess, a STEM education researcher and practitioner associated with Dominican University and College of the Sequoias, and this is the first post in what I hope becomes a long and generous conversation. Before we get into research findings, classroom experiments, and the occasional half-formed idea I'm still thinking my way through, I wanted to start where every good introduction should: with why I'm here, and why here matters to me.

Coming Home to the Central Valley

I came back to the Central Valley on purpose.

That sentence carries more weight than it might first appear. For a lot of us who grow up in this region, the prevailing story about ambition is a story about leaving — that success means heading somewhere with more prestige attached to its name. I understand the appeal of that narrative. But I've come to believe it quietly overlooks something important: the Central Valley is not a place students should have to escape in order to thrive. It's a place worth investing in, precisely because of the students who are already here.

This is one of the most agriculturally productive regions on the planet, home to communities rich in resilience, language, family, and know-how. It's also a region where many talented young people are the first in their families to consider college at all, let alone a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. When I look at the students walking into introductory courses here, I don't see a deficit to be fixed. I see enormous, often underestimated potential — and a set of very solvable structural gaps standing between that potential and its full expression.

I came back because I wanted to work on those gaps, with these students, in this place. Talent is distributed everywhere. Opportunity, historically, has not been. I'd like to help even that out, one course, one cohort, and one conversation at a time.

What I Study, and Why

My work sits at the intersection of STEM education research and everyday teaching practice, and I try hard not to let those two worlds drift apart. Research that never touches a real classroom tends to stay abstract; teaching that never pauses to ask "is this actually working?" tends to repeat its blind spots. I'm most interested in the space where evidence and practice inform each other.

Broadly, my questions circle around a few themes:

• Belonging and identity in STEM — how students come to see themselves as scientists, engineers, and mathematicians (or don't), and what learning environments make that identity feel available to more people.

• STEM student support theory and practices for programs — how we translate what we know about student success into the concrete design of programs, so support structures actually reach the students they're meant to serve.

• Effective, evidence-based teaching practices — active learning, mentorship, and the concrete instructional moves that help students not just pass a course, but keep going in a discipline.

Alongside the research, much of my professional work is practical and people-facing: teaching, mentoring, collaborating with colleagues on curriculum, and partnering with programs designed to broaden participation in STEM. I find that the most interesting research questions almost always come from the classroom and the community — from a student's honest question, a pattern in the data, or a moment where something worked better than expected and I wanted to understand why.

What This Blog Is For

I'm imagining this space as part field notes, part invitation.

Some posts will unpack research — mine and others' — in plain language, because good ideas shouldn't require a specialized vocabulary to be useful. Some will be reflections from the day-to-day work of teaching and mentoring. Some will simply celebrate the students and educators doing remarkable things across our region. I'll try to keep it honest, curious, and grounded, and I'll try to leave the door open for you to push back, add on, and think alongside me.

If you're a student wondering whether STEM has a place for you, I hope you'll find some encouragement here — and a fair amount of practical reassurance that yes, it does. If you're an educator, researcher, or community member who cares about this work, I hope you'll find ideas worth borrowing and, now and then, worth arguing with.

So: welcome. I'm genuinely glad you're here. Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy the blog and follow along as we figure some of this out together.

In the comments below, I would love to learn more about you, what you're hoping to get out of this blog, and how I can follow along on your journey.

More soon,

Tess