Science Education and Civic Engagement – An International Journal (SECEIJ) is thrilled to announce that Dr. Matt Fisher from Saint Vincent College has been named as the new Co-Editor-in-Chief. He joins Trace Jordan of New York University and managing editor Marcy Dubroff of The POGIL Project in overseeing NCSCE and SENCER’s online journal devoted to exploring constructive connections between science education and civic engagement.
Eliza Reilly, previously Co-Editor and now Executive Director of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, commented, “A former Carnegie Scholar and current Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Matt Fisher has been a long-time leader in the SENCER project and a generous colleague and mentor to many members of our community. Matt has provided invaluable support in guiding our programming in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and has been our trusted guide in setting scholarly standards and criteria for the evaluation of articles submitted to SECEIJ. We are very fortunate that he has accepted our invitation to become co-editor of the journal and we feel his involvement will not only ensure that the work we publish meets the highest standards, but will also help us expand the impact and reach of the journal.”
Matt Fisher is an associate professor of chemistry at Saint Vincent College where he was department chair for seven years and the director of the College’s Teaching Enhancement and Mentoring Program for the same length of time. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Temple University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990. He is also a senior fellow with the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, where he coordinates NCSCE’s efforts in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), and has developed two SENCER model courses: Chemistry of Daily Life: Diabetes and Malnutrition (for nonscience majors) and Undergraduate Biochemistry Through Public Health Issues (for science majors). An active member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), he served for over a decade on the ACS Committee on Environmental Improvement and now serves as part of the Committee on Science where he chairs the Public Policy and Communications Subcommittee. Matt is a 2005 Carnegie Scholar, has given presentations at conferences and facilitated workshops on both integrative learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning in the context of undergraduate science courses, and published several book chapters on his own work in SoTL. He has been recognized with the ACS-CEI Award for Incorporating Sustainability into Chemistry Education and the Thoburn Excellence in Teaching Award from Saint Vincent College. In 2015, he was named an American Chemical Society Fellow, in part for his work in SoTL and with SENCER.
Of his new appointment, Fisher reflected, “I’m really looking forward to working more closely with everyone involved with SECEIJ and the larger SENCER community in this new role. The Journal is an important way that SENCER supports faculty making their work on teaching and learning ‘community property’ (to use Lee Shulman’s phrase), and that is critically important as we collectively work to improve student learning in science.” Co-Editor Trace Jordan noted, “We are delighted that Matt will be working with the Journal in this new role. His extensive experience in the scholarship of teaching and learning, plus his longstanding involvement to the SENCER community, will enable us to further develop the Journal as a valuable scholarly resource for STEM educators.”
NCSCE welcomes Matt Fisher’s leadership as the Journal continues to grow. The summer 2017 issue is posted online at www.seceij.net. Submissions for the winter issue, Dr. Fisher’s first as Co-Editor, are currently being accepted for review.