Eugenia Etkina is a retired Russian and American scholar of physics education, focused on teacher preparation and professional development, and an author of physics textbooks centered on the Investigative Science Learning Environment framework for physics education and the Physics Union Mathematics high school curriculum. [1] She is a distinguished professor of physics education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education of Rutgers University. [2] [3]
Etkina is the daughter of physics and mathematics professors at Moscow State Pedagogical University; as non-religious Jews in the Soviet Union, more advanced levels of academia were blocked to the family. She grew up in the shadow of a mathematically talented older sister, and thought of herself instead as being an ice skater, until her sister's death of a heart defect, when Etkina was 15, led Etkina to a determination to take her sister's place. [4]
She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in 1982 in physics and astronomy from Moscow State Pedagogical University, and became a high school teacher at Moscow Southwest High School no 1543 in 1982. There, she became chair of the physics department and assistant principal from 1992 to 1995. She received a Ph.D. in physics education in 1997 through Moscow State Pedagogical University, with a dissertation on teaching physics to gifted students. [3]
In 1995 she moved to Rutgers University as a research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Math & Science Learning Center, [3] teaching physics to at-risk university students. [5] On completing her doctorate in 1997 she became an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education. She was promoted to associate professor in 2003, full professor in 2010, and distinguished professor in 2017. [3]
Etkina is the coauthor of physics textbooks including The Physics Active Learning Guide (with A. Van Heuvelen, Addison Wesley, 2006) and College Physics (with Van Heuvelen and Michael Gentile, Pearson, 2014). [3]
Etkina received the 2012 Distinguished Service Citation of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), [5] and the 2014 Robert A. Millikan award of the AAPT. [1] She is also a Fellow of the AAPT, and a recipient of the New Jersey Teacher Educator of the year award. [2]
Sarah Frances Whiting was an American physicist and astronomer. She was the first professor of physics and astronomy at Wellesley College, where she taught for over 30 years. At Wellesley College, Whiting instructed several notable astronomers and physicists, including Annie Jump Cannon. Whiting was one of the founders and the first director of the Whitin Observatory.
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The Higher Courses for Women in Moscow was a university for women between 1872 and 1918, after which they were transformed into the 2nd Moscow State University. It was one of the largest and most prominent women's higher education institutions in the Russian Empire, second only to the Bestuzhev Courses in Saint Petersburg. It was founded and administered by Vladimir I. Guerrier.
Lillian Christie McDermott was an American physicist. In the early 1970s, McDermott established the Physics Education Group (PEG) at the University of Washington to "improve the teaching and learning of physics from kindergarten all the way through graduate school." She was recognized for her many contributions to the field of physics education research with an election to the American Physical Society in 1990.
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