Angela Google

  • Assistant Professor
  • Biological Sciences
  • Phone: 401.874.9204
  • Email: angela.google@uri.edu
  • Office Location: CBLS 281

Research

“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.

Education

  • Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of South Alabama, 2021-2022
  • Ph.D., Middle Tennessee State University, 2021
  • M.S., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 2010
  • B.S., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 2007

Selected Publications

Google, A. N., Bowen, C., Brownell, S. E., Barnes, M. E. (2023). Isolation, Resilience, and Faith: Experiences of Black Christian Students in Biology Graduate Programs. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

Google, A. N., Sekaya, G., McMullen, Z., and Henning J. A. (2023) Adopting a Multi-Systems Approach: Examining the Academic Belongingness of First-Generation College Students with Multiple Stigmatized Identities in STEM. (Vol. 8, p. 1183907). Frontiers in Education.

Bowen, C. D., Summersill, A. R., Google, A. N., Aadnes, M. G., & Barnes, M. E. (2023). Exploring Black Undergraduate Students’ Communication and Biology Education Experiences about COVID-19 and COVID-19 Vaccines During the Pandemic. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 22(4), ar42.

Correia, K. M., Bierma, S. R., Houston, S. D., Nelson, M. T., Pannu, K. S., Tirman, C. M., Cannon, R. L., Clance, L. R., Canterbury, D. N., Google, A. N., Morrison, B. H., & Henning, J. A. (2022). Education Racial and Gender Disparities in COVID-19 Worry, Stress, and Food Insecurities across Undergraduate Biology Students at a Southeastern University. Journal of microbiology & biology education, 23(1), e00224-21.

Ewell, S. N., Cotner, S., Drake, A. G., Fagbodun, S., Google, A., Robinson, L., Soneral, P. & Ballen, C. J. (2022). Eight Recommendations to Promote Effective Study Habits for Biology Students Enrolled in Online Courses. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 23(1), e00260-21.

Google, A. N., Gardner, G., & Grinath, A. S. (2021). Undergraduate students’ approaches to learning biology: a systematic review of literature. Studies in Science Education, 1-42.