RISE Director Sara Brownell is an ASM Top-Cited Author in 2023! The paper "New Online Accommodations Are Not Enough: The Mismatch between Student Needs and Supports Given for Students with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic," co-authored by Logan Gin, Danielle Pais, Kristen Parrish, Sara Brownell, and Katelyn Cooper was recognized in Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education (JMBE)'s top-cited collections and shared with thousands both nationally and internationally.

As the COVID pandemic drove learning online at institutions of higher learning worldwide, some U.S. professors sought to reflect the new face of undergraduates, more diverse than ever. Demographic changes have led some to rethink the way they teach undergraduate science. Take Sara Brownell of Arizona State University, who received a Faculty Teaching Achievement Award this year. Brownell recalls the 2012 workshop that upended her science instruction. 

The COVID pandemic's impact on teaching and learning forced instructors to restructure their courses to be more accommodating toward and understanding of their students' situations -- both inside and outside of the classroom. Now that students have returned to classes, many of these instructors have continued to implement some of the lessons learned from teaching during the COVID pandemic into their courses. These new approaches to teaching can have positive effects on the inclusivity and accessibility of university courses. 

Women working as STEM instructors are more likely than men in the same profession to disclose to their undergraduate students identities which could carry stigma, such as depression or growing up in a low-income household. In the new study, published July 19, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, Carly Busch of Arizona State University, USA, and colleagues suggest that these decisions to disclose may be in order to act as role models for students.