Sophia Jeong

Headshot of Sophia Jeong

Assistant Professor, Department of Teaching and Learning

Program Area: Science, STEM

jeong.387@osu.edu

Biography

Sophia Jeong is an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. Her scholarly work draws on theories of new materialisms to examine ontological complexities of subjectivities and socio-material relations in the science classrooms. Broadly speaking, her research interests focus on equity issues in science education through the lens of rhizomatic, nonlinear analysis of K-16 science classrooms. As a science teacher educator, Jeong is passionate about fostering creativity, encouraging inquisitive minds, and developing youth’s socio-political consciousness and activism through science education.

Education

  • PhD in Science Education, University of Georgia

Research Interests

Research Summary

Jeong is a former high school biology and chemistry teacher and trained in molecular biology and science education. Her research goal is to re-imagine science education as a vehicle to make this world a more just world. As a teacher-scholar her scholarship is grounded in investigating day-to-day practices of the science classrooms from a posthuman orientation. In so doing, she pushes the boundaries of research methodologies in science education to create productive tensions and space for multiplicities of the socials (such as gender, race, power, equity, etc.) and consider ways in which science teaching and learning can be re-imagined in the following contexts:

  • In the context of working with doctoral students, she is passionate about creating synergy among emerging scholars to ask questions in science education that have yet been thought. Through a posthuman lens she encourages graduate students to consider agents – both humans and more-than-humans that co-constitute our worlds – in order to re-imagine science teaching and learning.
  • In the context of science teacher preparation and discipline-based education research (DBER), she applies non-linear, rhizomatic thinking to examine multiple and different ways in which equitable science teaching can be enacted and open up possibilities of science teachers’ or college science instructors' becomings or “people-yet-to-be.”
  • In the context of working with K-12 students and their classroom teachers, her research aims to distill thought provoking theories and concepts to practice as a way to make space for a diverse array of students' subjectivities, and multiple ways of knowing and learning in science.

Jeong is a principal investigator on projects funded through multiple grants. Her research is grounded in the classrooms working closely with in-service STEM teachers and administrators in local school districts. She welcomes collaborations with graduate students, preservice science teachers, science/STEM teacher-scholars, and K-12 students to think more deeply about equitable and inclusive science teaching and learning, and what science education could become to render all of us to become response-able towards a more just world. 

Selected Grants

  • Co-Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education, “Collaborative Research: Equitable Science Sensemaking: Helping Teacher Candidates Support Multiple Pathways for Learning” -- Award Abstract # 2213127; $155,994.00
  • Principal Investigator, The Dean' Emerging Seed Grant #1, “Cultivating innovative methodologies and Transdisciplinarity through dialogic reflexivity” – The Ohio State University; $15,000
  • Principal Investigator, The Dean' Emerging Seed Grant #2, “Secondary preservice teachers’ learning as becomings through the lens of rhizomatic thinking” – The Ohio State University; $15,000
  • Co-Investigator, The Dean' Emerging Seed Grant #3, “Project modeling for inclusive science teaching (MIST): Developing effective science instruction for students classified as English learners and students with disabilities” – The Ohio State University; $15,000
  • Co-Investigator, Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs (BETHA) Endowment, “From classrooms to communities: Fostering youth activism and civic engagement through case-based high school biology curriculum” – The Ohio State University; $50,000

Selected Publications

Books Edited

  • Jeong, S., Bryan, L., Tippins, D., & Sexton, C. (Eds.). (Forthcoming in 2023). Navigating the challenges of elementary science teaching and learning: Using case-based pedagogy to understand dilemmas of practice. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Jeong, S., Jakayla, C., Bhatia, N., McCourt, J., & Lemons, P. (2022). Professional development for college instructors focusing on student thinking in biology. College Biology Education-A Journal of Life Science Education.
  • Jeong, S. & Buxton, C. (in press). Things Matter: A Posthuman Empirical Inquiry into the Actualization of Gender in an Advanced Placement Biology Classroom. In K. Sidebottom, N. Fairchild, & C. Lee (Eds.), Posthumanism: A desire for a new humanity. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry
  • Jeong S., &Steele, D. (accepted). Re-imagining preservice science teachers’ becoming as ethical mattering: Diffracting noticing in an elementary science methods course. In D. Steele, S. Jeong, & B. Upadhyay. Transforming Communities: Equitable Science Teaching. Journal of Science Teacher Education
  • Steele, D., & Jeong S. (accepted).Conceptualizations-in-motion: Exploring pre-service science teachers shifts in views about justice-centered science pedagogy.In D. Steele, S. Jeong, & B. Upadhyay. Transforming Communities: Equitable Science Teaching. Journal of Science Teacher Education
  • Bateman, K., Sherman, B., & Jeong, S. (2022). Ethics are not on the test: Diffraction and affect in education policy. In K. Sidebottom, N. Fairchild, & C. Lee (Eds.), Posthumanism: A desire for a new humanity. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry.
  • Luft, J., *Jeong, S., Idsardi, B., & Gardner, G. (2022). Theoretical frameworks, conceptual frameworks, and literature review for discipline-based education researchers. College Biology Education-A Journal of Life Science Education.
  • Jeong, S., Sherman, B., & Tippins, D. (2021). The Anthropocene as we know it: Posthumanism, science education and scientific literacy as a path to sustainability. In K. Tobin (Ed.), Contemplative Inquiry, Wellbeing and Science Education. Cultural Studies in Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-021-10029-9
  • Sherman, B., Bateman, K., Jeong, S., & Hudock, L. (2021). Dialogic meta-ethnography: Troubling methodology in ethnographically informed qualitative. Cultural Studies in Science Education. 16, 279-302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-019-09961-8