Global STEM Education Program Staff
Elly Vandegrift is the Program Director for Global Science Education Initiatives and Senior Instructor II in the Global Studies Institute. She has been a higher education biology instructor and led science education professional development for nearly two decades. With global partners she develops and facilitates customized STEM education and communication workshops at the University of Oregon and across the world with partners such as Nagoya University, Mohammed Al-Mana College of Health Sciences, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Elly coordinates STEM and Healthcare GlobalWorks international internships.
As recognition of her teaching excellence, Elly has received four pedagogy awards selected by her peers: the inaugural 2019 UO Biology Committee for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for outstanding contributions; the 2017 UO Thomas F. Herman Award for Specialized Pedagogy; the 2016 UO Williams Fellow for Teaching Excellence; and the 2015 Association for the Study of Food and Society Pedagogy Award. In 2022, Elly will take her teaching skills back to the classroom for a new STEM in London GEO Study Abroad program.
Elly served as co-chair of the Steering Committee and a member of the leadership team for the Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching (now the National Institute on Scientific Teaching), an organization dedicated to providing teaching professional development for current and future faculty based on the pillars of inclusivity, active learning, and assessment. She is a co-principal investigator on two current grants: Association of American Universities (AAU) STEM mini-grant to improve alignment of STEM courses across the University of Oregon, and National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Research Coordination Network for Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE): Networking STEM Initiatives to Enhance (NSITE) Adoption of Evidence-based Practices to support collaboration of national STEM education reform efforts.
Previously, Elly led the University of Oregon Science Literacy Program to support curricular and pedagogical reform to make science interesting, engaging, and relevant for all students and provide pedagogical professional development and mentorship to science faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. She has directed the university’s Alan Alda for Communicating Science Affiliate program, and co- founded the Provost’s Teaching Academy. Elly graduated from Earlham College and completed her graduate work at Oregon State University. She is the author of several articles about STEM education reform and professional development.
Selected Articles:
- Vandegrift, E. and M. Withers. 2022. Looking Ahead While Leaving No One Behind: Resourcefulness and Resiliency Among North American Universities. in T. Izumi et al. (eds.), Safety and Resilience of Higher Educational Institutions, Disaster Risk Reduction, Springer, Singapore https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1193-4_7
- Withers, M., M. Monfared, FM Fung, VWY Lee, CA Lucio Ramírez, MAF Mendoza, C Zhou, EVH Vandegrift (2021). Teaching in Virtual Environments: Global Educational Development to Respond to Challenges and Opportunities of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Transformative Dialogues 14(2).
- Vandegrift, EVH, NC Barber, A Vitale, and T. Ward. 2020. Supporting Science Graduate Teaching Assistants and Undergraduate Learning Assistants Teaching Professional Development. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal. 13(3).
- Vandegrift EVH, and AJ Cavanagh. 2019. Building student literacy and metacognition through reading science in the news. CourseSource.
- Vandegrift, EVH, AB Mulnix, JR Yates, and SR Chaudhury. 2018. Workshopping a Workshop: Collaborative Design in Educational Development. To Improve the Academy 37(2), 207-227.
Faculty Partners
Nicola Barber, Instructor, Biology, University of Oregon
Anita Christie, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, Western University
Jennifer Rice, Senior Instructor II, American English Institute, University of Oregon
Mike Price, Senior Instructor II, Math, University of Oregon
Brandon Schabes, Lecturer, Chemistry, Union College
Faculty Advisory Board
Samantha Hopkins Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and Clark Honors College
Santiago Jaramillo Associate Professor of Biology
Ben McMorran Associate Professor of Physics