Sahar Alameh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Since joining the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor of STEM Education in 2020, Dr. Alameh has pursued a research agenda with vigor, encompassing two closely connected research areas: (1) the construction and evaluation of meaningful scientific explanations within K-12 science classrooms and (2) the investigation into the teaching and learning of Nature of Science (NOS).
Dr. Alameh began her career as a high school science teacher, where she taught physics and chemistry for seven years. Her experiences in the classroom, having witnessed firsthand the difficulties teachers face when teaching science for understanding, laid the foundation for her subsequent research endeavors. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Curriculum and Instruction from the Math, Science, and Technology (MST) Division, further solidifying her expertise in STEM education.
Her first line of research focuses on improving students’ explanations and understanding of scientific phenomena. In her work, she develops philosophically-supported models of scientific explanation, which allow the meaningful assessment of student explanations, and the provision of specific feedback to enable students to reflect on and improve these explanations.
Dr. Alameh’s second line of research is focused on supporting teachers and students in developing informed views about science and the nature of science in the context of socio-scientific issues (SSI). This area of research explores the characteristics of scientific knowledge, how it is developed, refined by the scientific community, and shaped by the cultural context in which it was developed.
She is actively conducting research and publishing in her field, and has presented papers at state, national, and international conferences.