学院研究焦点

Dr. Chelsie幕

Chelsie幕 是一名教授 环境及可持续发展研究 在北科罗拉多大学任教. 她的研究涉及多个资源管理领域 语境，但始终寻求理解 什么有效?为什么有效? to explain what contextual characteristics result in impacts and outcomes. 她用 mixed methods approaches to integrate quantitative and qualitative data that can be applied to many different management and policy situations and frequently make use 现有数据在新环境中的应用. 前 SESYNC 研究生追求委员和 史密森-梅森保护博士研究员, her dissertation research focused on community-based natural resource management 在秘鲁亚马逊. 她目前的研究兴趣是评估 enabling conditions for payments for ecosystem services programs using big data machine 学习 models and developing assessment methods for teaching 环境和可持续发展概念. 她现在 NSF IUSE项目的项目负责人 using machine 学习 techniques as an assessment tool to understand how students learn complex sustainability topics in the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus.

你能告诉我们一些你目前的研究吗?

我把我的研究定义为弄清楚 什么有效?为什么有效?. My STEM Education research focuses on 什么有效?为什么有效? does it work regarding student 学习. My NSF funded project is basically a proof of concept and first step for 评估学习. There exists “concept inventories” in many areas of science that test foundational knowledge, like force in physics, and we have concept inventories 气候变化和地球科学.  这些清单是一系列的问题， up until this point, have been multiple choice type questions and usually each question 真的专注于一个基本概念吗.  所以，我们所做的就是努力发展 we're calling the “next generation concept inventory”, where students can construct 一个响应.  Commonly known as a short answer response, we can then look at how students 能把想法联系起来.  We are working with a lab at Michigan State University called the Automated Assessment of Constructed Response Lab or AACR Lab, who has been doing 这是博天堂官方网站科学和工程的问题. 他们还没有做到 this specifically for a concept inventory, and so we're kind of combining two existing processes - development of a concept inventory and using these machine 学习 tools to create an algorithm that will evaluate a constructed or short answer response.

The tool that we will end up with at the end of this could be applied in any classroom - we are starting with food, energy, water concepts - and probably the best application 这个工具将是一个前测试和后测试. 如果你想干预的话 in your classroom or try a new strategy and see if it works or impacts 学习, you could do this test at the beginning of class to see what the baseline is for students 因为他们有很多先入为主的观念.  然后进行你的干预， followed by our test afterwards to see if 学习 发生了, and what kind of 学习 发生了. The fun thing with these machine 学习 algorithms is, not only do we get just a right or wrong answer, which is what we would already get from the multiple choice type questions, but we also get a lot more nuance about how students connect ideas and where there are potentially barriers to connections based on understanding 术语或概念.  同时，确定他们在哪些方面努力做到这一点 jump to a deeper understanding is really what I'm excited about.

What has been the most rewarding part of your research career thus far?

I would say definitely working with students and postdocs, which I think would probably 反映了很多人在博天堂官方的经历. 我们不是R1大学，那里的人 只是做研究而不是当老师吗.  能够和本科生一起工作， 毕业生和博士后都很值得.  和这样的人一起工作真的很令人兴奋， let them be in charge of something and see them make decisions and support them in 做研究. 

你是北卡大学百万美元俱乐部的一员. 管理一个百万美元的国家科学基金会是什么 项目如?

The other day I told someone I was going to do some research time and then I said, 实际上，那只是意味着我在做文书工作. 肯定有很多这样的 goes on, but on a more serious note, there is a lot of project management, which is another thing that I think faculty don't always have a lot of exposure to until we're 在这种情况下. 在我读研究生之前，我在一家公司工作了7年 an environmental management company where I did manage projects.  我发现我在学习 on the skills that I developed there, sometimes as much, maybe sometimes more, than 我在研究生院学到的其他技能.

有哪些挑战?

My grant started in the middle of COVID, so that was a huge challenge as a lot of the things we had planned, such as travel to the various sites, had to be reimagined.  Obviously, we could not do what we proposed, so the biggest challenge was completely revamping our first year of the grant so that we could do everything remotely.  It did suck up a bunch of time because we had to learn how to use Microsoft Teams, learn how to generate transcripts, and all our changes had to go through IRB.

What advice would you give to a faculty member that is thinking about pursuing research?

不要气馁.  依靠其他教员.  使用UNC提供的支持.  如果你没赢钱，你就没法工作，所以 y你需要得到补助金. 你需要使用所有你能使用的支持. 我经常和他一起工作 ORSP, and I’m messagng people there all the time; like weekly. 有时候我觉得 我跟你们说的就像跟我的部门说的一样多.  你有卡门帮忙 研究开发，所以有这些可用的支持.  我还建议 让不同的人看到你的拨款申请. 比如，我让人读过 完全不属于我的领域.  如果对他们来说没有意义，那么我担心 复习的人都是能理解我在说什么.  你肯定会陷入自己的困境 field with your blinders on and use all these words that don't make sense to anybody 其他的. Getting that proposal in a place where it has a good rationale and flow is so critical 一个成功的奖项. 但是，它对于理解你在做什么也很重要.  This particular grant that I have now, it was the 2nd submission.  我们先提交的 in 2018, got rejected and then resubmitted in 2019, and the reviewer comments were 伟大的. I mean some were very, very critical and that happens, but I carefully considered all of them, and talked to the program officer before resubmitting.

接下来你要做什么??

I actually was part of another large grant submission this summer. 这个是领头的 by Harmony Newman in Sociology and I'm so excited by the fact that we've got teams 在各个专业和学院的教职员工中.  史蒂夫·安德森，地球科学 is my current co-PI and he's not even in my same college, and then Harmony is a Sociologist, 我们将一起工作. 我们真的很兴奋! 我们提交给 STEM项目中新的种族平等. 我肯定还会提交第二份NSF IUSE grant like the one I currently have so we can continue that work with the assessment 工具一旦建成.