Rebecca Sansom

Rebecca Sansom

Fellowship Placement: National Science Foundation
Cohort: 2013-2014

Rebecca Sansom is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Prior to the Einstein Fellowship, she was a chemistry and biology teacher at Bingham High School in South Jordan, UT.  She taught concurrent enrollment science classes, which allow students to earn college credit while enrolled in high school, and had been at Bingham for three years. She advised the school’s MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement) club, which seeks to involve women and ethnic minorities in STEM activities and education. Before moving to Utah, she taught chemistry and biology at Belmont High School in Belmont, MA for five years. While there, she coached the school’s Science Olympiad team and served as a mentor teacher. In addition to teaching at the high school level, Rebecca has taught at Salt Lake Community College as an adjunct professor, and as a teaching fellow at the University of Utah and Harvard University.

In addition to her work as a classroom teacher, Rebecca served as the Secondary Science Specialist for Jordan School District. In this role, she led professional development meetings in the district, helped maintain the district curriculum website, and facilitated science safety training and compliance within the district. As a consultant to the Utah State Office of Education, she was part of the planning and facilitation team for Core Academy 2012, a series of professional development workshops for teachers focused on incorporating literacy in science teaching. Rebecca also served as a team leader for the development of open educational resource textbooks for biology, and 8th grade integrated science, and developed an online safety training course for Utah teachers and pre-service teachers. Rebecca is a member of the Utah State Science Education Coordinating Committee, and is working with state officials to plan an update to the state’s science standards.