Faculty
- Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself
- Title
- Assistant Professor of Science Education
- Division Social Sciences Division
- Department
- Education Department
- Office Location
- McHenry Library, 3122
- Office Hours By appointment
- Mail Stop Education Department
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High Street
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Science Education; Bilingualism, Multilingualism
- Courses EDUC 230: Science Education Research and Practice, EDUC 231: Teaching Science in the Secondary Classroom, EDUC 177: Teaching Linguistically Diverse Students
Summary of Expertise
K-12 Science Education, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, Raciolinguistic Ideologies, Disciplinary Practices, Social Justice Issues in Science, Environmental Justice, Teacher Learning, Teacher-Researcher Co-Design, Community Partnerships
Research Interests
Emily Reigh studies how to create opportunities for students from minoritized language backgrounds to engage in the disciplinary practices of science. Her research builds on her experience as science teacher in the United States and Egypt, as well as her background in teaching and learning languages. She draws from sociocultural and critical theories to study how K-12 science teachers engage students’ existing cultural and linguistic practices, as well as how teachers resist the institutional structures that systematically devalue these resources. Relatedly, she seeks to expand traditional views of science practices to include embodied sensemaking, storytelling, and historicization. Emily's most recent project investigates how newcomer students engage with local and global issues of climate justice, focusing on how they connect personal narratives to reasoning about large-scale data sets. She serves on the leadership council of Science Educators for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice.
Biography, Education and Training
Postdoctoral Fellow, Writing Data Stories, University of California, Berkeley
Postdoctoral Researcher, Science in the City Lab, Stanford University
Ph.D., Science Education, Race, Inequality and Language in Education, Stanford University
M.A., Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
B.S., Chemistry, University of Oklahoma
B.A., Letters, University of Oklahoma
Honors, Awards and Grants
Supporting Teachers in Implementing Justice-Centered Climate Change Pedagogy (2023 – 2025)
PI: Helen Fitzmaurice
PI (subaward): Emily Reigh
Funder: UC Climate Action Grant
Award: $1,400,000
UCSC Subaward: $104,000
Supporting Multilingual Learners in Scientific Sensemaking through an Interactional Approach to Language (2020 – 2023)
PI: Emily Reigh
Funder: California Science Project
Award: $90,000
Selected Publications
Reigh, E., Arastoopour Irgens, G., McBride, C., Quiterio, A., Wilkerson, M. (in press). Critical Data Literacies. In M. Winn and L. Winn (Eds). Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Social Justice in Education.
Li, T., Reigh, E., He, P., & Adah Miller, E. (2023). Can we and should we use artificial intelligence for formative assessment in science? Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 60(6), 1-5. https://doi:10.1002/tea.21867
Robillard, S, Reigh, E., Garcia, J., Suzara, M., & Garcia, A. (2023). All hands on deck: exploring how Latinx families in California supported child learning during the initial Covid-19 shutdown. Journal of Family Studies, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2023.2219663
Reigh, E., Miller, E., Simani, M. (2023). Towards Equity for Multilingual Learners through the NGSS. Science and Children. 60(4).
Reigh, E., Escudé, M., Bakal, M., Rivero, E., Wei, X., Roberto, C., Hernández, D., Yada, A., Gutiérrez, K., & Wilkerson, M. H. (2022). Mapping racespace: Data stories as a tool for environmental and spatial justice. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, (48), 79-95. DOI: https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1452
Miller, E., Reigh, E., Berland, L., & Krajcik, J. (2021). Supporting equity in virtual science instruction through project-based learning: Opportunities and challenges in the era of COVID-19. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32(6), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2021.1873549