Dr. Lisa Lundgren (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor


Dr. Lisa Lundgren (she/her/hers)

Contact Information

Office Hours: By Appointment
Phone: (435) 797-1168
Email: lisa.lundgren@usu.edu
Additional Information:

Educational Background

PhD, Curriculum and Instruction with concentration in Science Education, University of Florida, 2018

MS, Science Education, Montana State University, 2014

BA, Dual Concentration in History and English, Montana State University, 2011

Biography

Dr. Lundgren is a design-based researcher who is always seeking to understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions. Her research focuses on how people learn about science topics in various contexts, including social media, schools, museums, and comic-cons. Dr. Lundgren considers herself a socioculturalist, who is especially enamored with empirically testing the Communities of Practice theoretical framework. She uses mixed methods to conduct her research, but specializes in content analysis and social network analysis. The following questions guide her research:

  • How can the use of design build our capacity for integrating formal and informal education opportunities?
  • What forms of public participation and engagement with science are effective in integrating diverse stakeholders in science knowing, learning, and teaching?

Dr. Lundgren welcomes students from diverse backgrounds who are interested in doing research at the PhD, Master’s, and undergraduate levels. The Lundgren lab focuses on cutting-edge methods in the learning sciences, including social network analysis and machine learning. Working in collaboration, students will develop research projects that are concretely established in theoretical foundations and couched in meaningful methodologies which make substantial contributions to the fields of instructional technology and learning sciences.


Featured Work

Cosplay for Science Initiative

In this project,  scientists who are interested in the hobby of cosplay (i.e. dressing up as characters from pop culture) discuss the science within pop culture with people using social media posts and creating pop-up museum exhibits that can be taken to comic conventions. I lead the Cosplay for Science educational team in developing data collection methods to understand how peoples’ perceptions of scientists are affected by interacting with scientists who cosplay, and in turn, how scientists’ perceptions of their identities as scientists are affected by their cosplay. This nascent work has recently been funded by the Geological Society of America’s E-An Zen Fund for Geoscience Outreach. For more information, see https://www.cosplayforscience.com/.


Research Focus

Lisa focuses on the design, development, implementation, and research of social learning within formal, informal, and online environments. She uses a design-based research perspective to develop practical and theoretical insights concerning learning processes within the field of STEM Education.

The following questions orient her work, which in turn, is focused around two long-term goals:

  • How can the use of design build our capacity for integrating formal and informal education opportunities?
  • What forms of public participation and engagement with science are effective in integrating diverse stakeholders in science knowing, learning, and teaching

Goal One –  Support and facilitate formal and informal science education opportunities through the development and evaluation of novel engagement practices.

Goal Two – Develop and investigate methods for examining social learning from a networked perspective.


Selected Publications

See CV or Google Scholar for a comprehensive list of publications.

Lundgren, L., Crippen, K. J., & Bex, R. T., II. (2020). Social media interaction as informal science learning: A comparison of message design in two niches. Research in Science Education. doi: 10.1007/s11165-019-09911-y

Lundgren, L. & Crippen, K. J. (2019). Learning and the practice of social media in informal science education centers. International Journal on E-Learning 18(1), 31-52. Waynesville, NC USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/181959/.

Lundgren, L., Stofer, K. A., Dunckel, B. A., Krieger, J., James, V., & Lange, M. (2019). Panel-based exhibit using participatory design elements may motivate behavior change. Journal of Science Communication 18(2), A03. doi: 10.22323/2.18020203

*Bex, R. T., II., *Lundgren, L., & *Crippen, K. J. (2019). Scientific Twitter: The flow of paleontological communication across a social network. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0219688. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219688 *Represents equal contribution

Lundgren, L., Crippen, K. J., & Bex, R. T., II. (2018). Digging into the PIT: A new tool for characterizing the social paleontological community. In The Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2018, pp. 76-83. Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/184954/