Postdoctoral research fellow and alum Amber Willis and alum Channing Mathews named 2021 CADRE Post Docs

CADRE is a network for STEM education researchers funded by the National Science Foundation's Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) program. CADRE launched its Postdoc Professional Growth Opportunity in 2018 as part of its broader efforts to support early career researchers in STEM education. As part of the program, postdocs participate in webinars on funding research, learn about developing NSF proposals, build community with postdocs from other institutions, and network with DRK-12 awardees, NSF program directors, and other early-career scholars.

Dr. Amber Willis is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan within TeachingWorks. She holds a BS in Mathematics Education from Oakwood University and MS in Mathematics Education from Nova Southeastern University. She received her PhD in Educational Studies, with a concentration in Mathematics Education from the University of Michigan. She has 19 years of teaching experience ranging from middle and high school mathematics, to adjunct instructor at Alder Graduate School and a graduate teaching and research assistant in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on designing and studying practice-based professional learning experiences that support educators to see Black students' brilliance in mathematical spaces and the use of their brilliance as a resource for instruction. Her interests are motivated by a commitment to children and a desire to enrich their experiences in schools.

Dr. Channing Mathews is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Social Development Lab in the Department of Psychology at North Carolina State University. She works on the DRK-12 project, Promoting Equitable and Inclusive STEM contexts in High School. In 2020, she received her PhD from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan, where she studied how ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness processes functioned in tandem as cultural assets for Black youth's academic and sociopolitical success. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Mathews extends her work by examining how ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness processes function specifically within STEM contexts to promote the success of Black and Latinx youth. The goals of her work are to challenge deficit narratives of Black and Latinx youth with a strengths-based STEM identity focused intervention that draws upon ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness as promotive and protective factors for Black and Latinx youth to persist in STEM classrooms.