UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State College of Education faculty member Carla Zembal-Saul has been selected as a 2024 fellow by NARST: A Global Organization for Improving Science Education through Research.
The honor recognizes Zembal-Saul’s “significant professional accomplishments as a science education researcher and her exceptional and longtime service to the NARST community.” Zembal-Saul has been a NARST (National Association for Research in Science Teaching) member for more than 30 years, dating to her time as a graduate student at the University of Michigan.
“I am reminded that it is through partnerships that my work has been possible, and I grateful to NARST for providing the conduit for meeting many of the brilliant scholars with whom I have collaborated over the years,” Zembal-Saul said. “I look forward to my continued involvement with the organization.”
Zembal-Saul has been a College of Education faculty member since 1997. She currently holds the Kahn Professorship in STEM Education (science, technology, engineering and math).
“To say Dr. Zembal-Saul has dedicated her distinguished career to science education would be an understatement,” said College of Education Dean Kim Lawless. “She has been a leader and stalwart not only in her field, but among our faculty, including during her time serving as head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. We are thrilled for Dr. Zembal-Saul to receive this richly deserved honor so the world can learn what her colleagues and students already know — that she is a dedicated and difference-making science educator and education researcher.”
Zembal-Saul's research investigates how preservice and practicing elementary teachers learn to support children’s equitable participation in science practices and sense-making, with emphasis on arguing from evidence.
Her scholarship has impacted the lives of researchers, educators and students. As a leader in science education, she has made significant contributions, such as serving on two National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus committees that describe a vision for PK-5 Science and Engineering and the professional learning of teachers.
“Every child has the right to investigate the natural world in increasingly sophisticated ways and to have their ideas taken seriously,” Zembal-Saul explained. “Children come to school curious and with intuitive and imaginative ways of investigating and solving problems. It is our responsibility as science teacher educators and researchers to ensure that teachers are equipped to welcome and celebrate children’s curiosity and to facilitate their engagement in science and engineering practices to better understand how the world works.”
Along with this work, Zembal-Saul is engaged in numerous roles in NARST. One of her most significant contributions pertains to her work to cultivate the next generation of science education researchers, being essential in co-founding and co-implementing the Sandra K. Abell Institute for Doctoral Students. Her scholarship has contributed important understandings of how elementary teachers learn to teach science in equitable and responsive ways. Situated within schools, her research illuminates the important role that context holds in elementary science teachers’ learning and practices.
“My career-long pursuit to understand how teachers learn to support children’s sense-making within intentionally designed programs and systems of support has deepened my commitment to reciprocal connections among research and practice,” Zembal-Saul said.
The NARST Fellows Program was established in 2021 to highlight and celebrate accomplished scholars representing a diversity of racial, linguistic, gender and other identities, from around the world and from various epistemological traditions, and to acknowledge the scholars’ presence and commitment to advancing the mission of NARST within and beyond the organization.