Brian Donovan
How I got here:
I began my career in science education as a middle school science teacher. Over the seven years that I taught middle school science, I began to develop and implement instructional materials that helped students to understand the history of racism in science. While using these materials, I started to question whether I was having a positive social and emotional impact on my students. So, I decided to pursue a career in research to pursue the questions further.
While I was at Stanford University pursuing a PhD in science education and a master’s degree in biology, I developed a research program that explored how the content of biology education influences the development of racial beliefs among middle and high school students. My dissertation demonstrated that when students learned about the prevalence of sickle cell anemia in African American and European American populations, they incorrectly inferred that racial groups differ in intelligence and science ability because of their genes. Then, I received a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship to figure out why students were making this incorrect inference. It was at this point that I first developed the idea of a more humane genetics education.
The purpose of humane genetics is to learn about the complexity of inheritance and population genetics in order to understand the genetic flaws in white supremacist beliefs systems. At Stanford, with my colleagues Rob Semmens, K.C. Busch, and Phillip Keck, I conducted the first field experiment of a humane genetics education. In a sample of 8th and 9th graders, we demonstrated that humane genetics instruction caused students to disbelieve that races differ in intelligence because of genes. I then brought humane genetics to BSCS after graduate school.
At BSCS, I developed the humane genetics research program into what it is today. Monica Weindling was the first person to join my team. She and I developed the humane genetics instructional materials and professional learning materials and we conducted and published several new studies together. These studies repeatedly showed that humane genetics could reliably reduce the belief that races differ in intelligence because of their genes. They also began to teach us how cognitively, emotionally, and socially difficult it was to successfully implement humane genetics instruction. Dr. Paul Strode, who is a high school biology teacher that we collaborate with, was a key player in all of this work. He really pushed our thinking around our curriculum development and teacher professional learning materials, and he helped us understand just how difficult it is for teachers to implement humane genetics. Dr. Dennis Lee has also been instrumental in pushing our work forward on race and genetics education. He and I recently received new NSF funding to explore issues of conceptual change and epistemic reasoning that are implicated in humane genetics instruction.
As I pursued my line of research on race and genetics education, I also began a collaboration with my colleague, Molly Stuhlsatz. She and I became interested in extending humane genetics into the biology of sex differentiation. Over the last six years, Molly and I conducted several studies that explored how genetics education affected the development of gender stereotyping. Then, Molly and I joined forces with Andrei Cimpian at NYU and Catherine Riegle-Crumb at UT Austin to write an NSF grant proposal to figure out how to teach about the genetics of sex differentiation to reduce sexist beliefs about gender. We are now working on that project and have already discovered that high school genetics textbooks include many messages that promote inaccurate ideas about sex and gender. Dr. Dennis Lee, Awais Syed, and Andy Brubaker joined the team at this point. Dennis and Awais have taken a lead in pushing forward our research on gender and Andy has taken the lead in pushing forward instructional materials development on the gender project.
Last but not least, while at BSCS I also began a line of research to explore how undergraduate genetics instruction could be used to reduce belief in genetic determinism. The seed of this research program was also planted while I was at Stanford. During graduate school, I developed a collaboration with Gregory Radick, who is a historian of science at the University of Leeds. Greg has shaped my thinking about genetics education more than any other scholar. Through his work he has showed how developments in the history of biology at the turn of the 20th century continue to influence how genetics is taught today. Greg is a big advocate of moving genetics education beyond Mendel and his peas to help students understand the complexity of inheritance. He and I teamed up with Michelle Smith of Cornell University to write a proposal to explore how to teach about multifactorial genetics to reduce students’ beliefs in genetic determinism. The entire humane genetics team has been working on that project for the last two years.
How my identity intersects with my work:
My mom was born in a refugee camp in post-war Europe. Like many other refugees, her family came to the United States (US) after experiencing ethnic persecution. My grandmother was kidnapped and enslaved by Nazis and my grandfather was a POW of the Nazis. When the war was over my mother’s family immigrated to the US. Yet, their immigration did not end their persecution. Throughout her K-12 education, some children were not allowed to play with her because she was a “dirty refugee,” and she was sometimes ridiculed with jokes about “how dumb the polish are.” The contrast between my mother’s experiences as a refugee and my own as a second-generation citizen helped me to see my privilege. Unlike my mother, I did not have to learn English in school or teach my parents English after school. Unlike my mother, I did not have to work before and after school cleaning houses or taking care of my younger siblings. My childhood responsibilities were focused on doing well in school, and when I was in school, my teachers never stereotyped me intellectually because of my ethnicity or gender. Growing up white, heterosexual, and male in a society that was created to privilege cis-white-heterosexual-men gave me opportunities that my mom, many immigrants, many people of color, and many LGBTQIA individuals are denied. For these reasons, I believe that I must use my privilege to make the STEM education system in the US more equitable, inclusive, and socially just. That is why I work on the humane genetics projects.
What I do when working:
I have my hands in every cookie jar when it comes to this work. But I spend most of my time mentoring, writing, and doing statistics. I also spend a lot of time organizing workflow on my projects, managing budgets, and giving research talks. These days, I spend less time writing instructional materials for students and teachers and more time advising my excellent writing team. I most enjoy mentoring, analyzing data, and writing….in that order.
Other work I am interested in:
I am interested in statistical literacy, motivated reasoning, epistemic reasoning, climate change education, history and philosophy of biology, and research methods.
Research stats:
1. Research Worth Reading Award by the Publications Advisory Committee (PAC) of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) (2022) for my article Genomics Literacy Matters in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching
2. National Association for Research in Science Teaching Early Career Research Award (2020): An award given annually to the early researcher who demonstrates the greatest potential to make outstanding and continuing contributions to educational research.
3. Top Cited Paper Award (2019-2020) for Science Education and Most Downloaded Paper Award (2018-2019) for my article Towards a More Humane Genetics Education in Science Education
4. National Science Teacher Association Research Worth Reading Award (2017) for my article Learned Inequality in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching
5. Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (2014-2016): The Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF) Program is a competitive university-wide program that awards a three-year fellowship to outstanding doctoral students engaged in interdisciplinary research.
6. Herbst Award for Teaching Excellence (2009): A $2000 award given each year to one teacher in San Francisco Independent and Parochial Schools for demonstrating excellence in the classroom.
7. Secured four NSF grants over 5 years
8. 20+ peer reviewed papers and counting
9. On the editorial board for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching
10. My research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic & Undark, The Independent, EdWeek, and The Daily Mail
Learn more here.
What do I do with the rest of my life:
Mostly I enjoy my family and my two dogs. But I also spend a lot of time skiing, surfing in the ocean and on rivers, picking the banjo, and meditating.
Stats (as of 7/25/2022):
I have done ski descents on 11 different 14,000 foot peaks, surfed a wave four times taller than me, and done multi-day rock climbs and alpine climbs. I also happened to sleep on the side of a cliff on one of those climbs.
