Sara Brownell, an internationally recognized neuroscientist turned full-time education researcher who studies how to make undergraduate biology learning environments more inclusive, is this year’s recipient of the 2023 Faculty Teaching Award.
 
Brownell is a professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and the founding director for the Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center. She is known for teaching large courses in active learning ways, taking a student-centered approach of building community, normalizing the sharing of identities and listening to and empowering students in their learning process. She is keen to pick up on what is working or not in her classroom by asking her students and constantly adjusts her teaching to become more effective.
 
Brownell is a national education leader who questions what we think we know about undergraduate science education. She has made several discoveries about obstacles to student learning that were surprises to almost everybody. While many studies have shown that active learning works better than passive lecture on average, her research group was the first to explore some of the challenges of active learning for students with anxiety, LGBTQ students and students with disabilities. Her research team has also led some of the first studies that have shown that instructors revealing their concealable identities can positively impact students by normalizing identities and providing role models for students. Finally, her work on promoting culturally competent evolution education for religious students to decrease their perceived conflict between evolution and religion has cultivated a realization of the importance of both student and instructor religious identity for student evolution acceptance.

Brownell received her PhD in biology from Stanford University, with an emphasis on neuroscience and physiology, and then moved through two postdoctoral positions in science education to become a leading expert in biology education research.
 
The winner of numerous institutional teaching awards and national research awards, she also has a strong track record of receiving National Science Foundation funding for research on how to most effectively inspire students.  She is the recipient of the 2020 LGBTQ+ Educator of the Year Award, the 2021 National Association of Biology Teachers Evolution Education Award and was elected as a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement in Science in 2022. Her research in biology education has been featured in Science Magazine, Scientific American and the New York Times.