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Jennifer Nielson

Jennifer Nielson

Associate Dean, Phys & Math Sc
The College, Dean's Office

C412 BNSN - Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602

Biography

My undergraduate degree is a BS in Chemistry from BYU and I earned a MS and PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. I began full-time as professional teaching faculty at BYU in 2004 after 5 years teaching adjunct for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Research Interests

My current research interest is in science literacy and chemical education. One of my international projects is in Uganda, Africa. We design curriculum with hands-on classroom and lab experiments to train secondary school teachers and pre-service teachers in inquiry and problem-based pedagogy. The research is in collaboration with professors at Makerere University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and the Ugandan National Curriculum Development Center. My research team also uses randomized control trials (RCT) to study the effectiveness of different student-centered strategies.

Teaching Interests

BYU students are amazing and I have the privilege of teaching 500-1000 each year in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. I continue to improve my teaching through seminars and workshops. In Winter semester 2020 I took a graduate course to learn how to successfully flip a course which I implemented Spring 2020 and Fall 2020. This had some advantages for students during COVID since the lecture part of the course was delivered online with interactive asynchronous activities.

Honors and Awards

  • Professional Faculty Teaching Award, Brigham Young University (2015 - 2015)

Courses Taught

Publications

Roni Jo Draper Daniel T Barney Gordon Paul Broomhead Sirpa T Grierson Amy Petersen Jensen Jennifer Burrows Nielson Jeffery D Nokes Steven L Shumway Jennifer J Wimmer