Angela Google

“Learning transforms who we are and what we can do, it is an experience of identity. It is not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming – to become a certain person or, conversely, to avoid becoming a certain person” (Wenger, 1998, p. 215). As a discipline-based educational researcher with a focus in biology, Dr. Angela Google takes an identity-based perspective to illuminate factors that motivate students’ decision to leave or persist in STEM career pathways. From their first day of college classes to graduation, students constantly negotiate who they are juxtaposed to who they want to become post-graduation, while navigating a complex socially, politically, and historically regulated academic context. In this light, her research examines the nuanced process of becoming a science person or science professional, also known as the construction of one’s science identity. One’s science identity is relational to other multiple identities; therefore, she specifically centers the voices and experiences of racialized and marginalized students in efforts to transform their position in science education. Angela Google – Biological Sciences (uri.edu)