Berkeley Lab Teaching Scholars 


For upcoming volunteer opportunities from Berkeley Lab's K-12 Team, head to the main Volunteering Page

Description 

The Berkeley Lab Teaching Scholars program is a joint collaboration between the Career Pathways Office and the K-12 STEM Education programs at Berkeley Lab. The program seeks to help Berkeley Lab staff strengthen their science communication skills, gain experiences in formal and informal education, and provide connections to the local community. 

In return, the K-12 programs will have a stronger team of STEM enthusiasts that are capable of explaining difficult subjects to broad audiences and comfortable facilitating hands-on scientific content in various settings. 

Interested participants can complete an application indicating their interest in on of the three tracks and areas of interest.  Once the application is completed, teaching scholars should begin volunteering in areas that best reflect their track and complete their service hour requirements. Hours will be logged via google form. 

Please complete the google form to express interest. 

Info session slides

Hours will be logged through Galaxy Digital under Activities with K-12 once the initial application has been reviewed and accepted.

Focus Tracks

There are three main tracks that scholars can choose from: 

Areas of Service 

These are areas that scholars can earn credit toward receiving their distinction as a Berkeley Lab teaching scholar:

Learning Content & Delivery 

Facilitation of Content and Instruction 

Curriculum and Content Development 

Career Development Workshops

Elective Courses (maximum of 15 hours for individual track and 10 for combined) 

Teaching Scholar Candidates (30+ hours)


  


Scholars with 100+ Hours 

2022

Congratulations to Alex Lin, Ying Wang, Bashir Mohammed, and Baishakhi Bose for reaching 100 hours of service in 2022. These postdoctoral scholars contributed heavily to EinR and BLDAP internship programs, SeA Bilingual STEM Camp, and numerous live events including professional development talks and After School Science Hour.  

Alex Lin

Energy Sciences

Ying Wang

Biosciences

Bashir Mohammed

Computing Sciences

Baishakhi Bose

Biosciences

2023

Carlotta Porzio Ph.D.

Congratulations to Carlotta for reaching over 150 hours of service in 2023, participating in SAGE and SeA.

Carlotta Porzio is a nuclear physicist who works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Nuclear Structure Group. Her research focuses on investigating nuclear structure via in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy. Carlotta completed her M.Sc. in Physics and obtained her Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics at the University of Milan (Italy).

2021

Lisa Claus, Ph.D. 

Congratulations to Lisa for reaching over 100 hours of service in 2021, participating in SAGE, Experiences in Research, SLAM, and taking part in community collaborations. 

Lisa Claus is a mathematician who works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Scalable Solvers Group. Her research focuses on the development of high-performance computing software to accelerate the simulation of various applications from climate models to electromagnetism. Before joining LBNL in January 2020, Lisa completed a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in numerical mathematics at the University of Wuppertal in Germany. She is a co-chair of the Berkeley Lab Postdoc Association.

Rebecca Carney, Ph.D. 

Congratulations to Rebecca for reaching 200 hours of service in 2021, participating in SAGE, Live Science, Let's Talk About STEM, and Nuclear Science Day.

Rebecca Carney is a postdoctoral scholar in the Nuclear Science Division at Berkeley Lab. She works in instrumentation and data analysis exploring the fundamental nature of the neutrino on the KATRIN and LEGEND experiments.

2020

Maria Zurek, Ph.D. 

Congratulations to Maria for reaching 200 hours of service in 2020, participating in SAGE, BLDAP, SLAM, Live Science, and numerous other community events. She is the first to complete 100+ hours of service as a Teaching Scholar. 

Maria Zurek is a particle physicist who tries to understand why our Universe exists as it is. In her research, she studies the structure of matter we are all made of at the most fundamental level. After obtaining her M.Sc. degree in Poland, where she is originally from, she moved to Germany, where she received her PhD from the University of Cologne. Throughout her career, she has been performing experiments using large particle colliders. During her time at Berkeley Lab she was a supporter of the postdoc community in her role of co-chair of the Berkeley Lab Postdoc Association, and is a science communication enthusiast. 

She now works at Argonne National Laboratory