Leigh Arino de la Rubia

Professional Title
Research Project Director
Organization/Institution
About Me (Bio)
Leigh S. Arino de la Rubia is currently a Research Project Director in the Center of Excellence for Learning Sciences at Tennessee State University. During the past four years she has worked on one education research grant and two different NSF-funded curriculum development projects as a teacher-trainer, developer, high school teacher, and educational researcher. Prior to her current position she was the Assistant Director of the TSU site of the Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Aerospace Academy (SEMAA), an informal science education program for K-12 students sponsored by NASA. Her personal research interests are in effectively educating non-mainstream students in STEM areas, the intersection of culture and science, communicating cutting-edge science to students, and the impacts of the implicit science curriculum upon students and teachers. She has also been active in the local informal science education community since 2007 as a Solar System Ambassador through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Leigh holds a BA in psychology from Vanderbilt University, a MS from Tennessee State University in the biological sciences, and an EdD from TSU in curriculum & instruction.
Keywords
Tennessee State University (TSU)
09/01/2007

This project is designed to enhance an existing interdisciplinary high school science curriculum—Astrobiology in the Secondary Classroom (ASC)—in an innovative way and conduct research to determine the effectiveness of these materials in three different underrepresented student populations—African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americas—experiencing an achievement gap in STEM areas at five sites. Improvements will focus on program alignment and increased use of data sets made available by research scientists.