Dr. Maria Wallace is an Associate Professor in the Center for STEM Education at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) where she also holds affiliate faculty status in USM's Women's & Gender Studies Program while serving as the Program Coordinator for the USM's STEM Education Graduate Certificate. Her research explores the generative interplay of informal and formal science education by paying close attention to the ‘in-between spaces’.
Employing community-engaged research (CEnR), Dr. Wallace explores how in-between spaces of identities, places, positionalities, and conceptual development support a complex view of how ‘ideas materialize’ in science educator preparation—be it power, equity, justice, science, or research methodologies.
Working with diverse interdisciplinary undergraduate, graduate, faculty, and community partners, she strives to foster community-driven efforts to decolonize science education. NExUS-MS (Nurturing Educators’ complex Understanding of Society & Science - Mississippi), Dr. Wallace’s emerging research group, is dedicated to designing and studying community-engaged science education experiences from multidimensional perspectives to accomplish two cross-cutting objectives: (1) advance Mississippi postsecondary science education while strengthening Mississippi K12 pre-service teacher recruitment and education; and (2) study the diverse impacts of research-practice partnerships with informal science institution (ISI) to develop a model for University-ISI partnerships across the Gulf Coast Region.
Rather than continuing to tell a deficit-based story of ‘the place of Mississippi,’ she strives to design culturally responsive partnerships for elevating asset-based understandings of learning to teach science in highly underserved contexts like Mississippi.
Dr. Wallace has taught 3rd-6th science in Texas and Massachusetts, holds a B.S. in Geology from Millsaps College, M.A.T from Trinity University, and PhD in Curriculum & Instruction with emphases in Curriculum Theory, Science Education and Women & Gender Studies from Louisiana State University.
Employing community-engaged research (CEnR), Dr. Wallace explores how in-between spaces of identities, places, positionalities, and conceptual development support a complex view of how ‘ideas materialize’ in science educator preparation—be it power, equity, justice, science, or research methodologies.
Working with diverse interdisciplinary undergraduate, graduate, faculty, and community partners, she strives to foster community-driven efforts to decolonize science education. NExUS-MS (Nurturing Educators’ complex Understanding of Society & Science - Mississippi), Dr. Wallace’s emerging research group, is dedicated to designing and studying community-engaged science education experiences from multidimensional perspectives to accomplish two cross-cutting objectives: (1) advance Mississippi postsecondary science education while strengthening Mississippi K12 pre-service teacher recruitment and education; and (2) study the diverse impacts of research-practice partnerships with informal science institution (ISI) to develop a model for University-ISI partnerships across the Gulf Coast Region.
Rather than continuing to tell a deficit-based story of ‘the place of Mississippi,’ she strives to design culturally responsive partnerships for elevating asset-based understandings of learning to teach science in highly underserved contexts like Mississippi.
Dr. Wallace has taught 3rd-6th science in Texas and Massachusetts, holds a B.S. in Geology from Millsaps College, M.A.T from Trinity University, and PhD in Curriculum & Instruction with emphases in Curriculum Theory, Science Education and Women & Gender Studies from Louisiana State University.