As Women's History Month draws to a close, the MST Department celebrates the women who are not only advancing their fields, but fundamentally reimagining who belongs in them. For Dr. Felicia Moore Mensah, Professor of Science Education, that work is deeply personal. With 22 years at Teachers College and more than 50 doctoral dissertations sponsored, Dr. Mensah has dedicated her career to making science education more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. “Being able to go to classrooms and interact with girls and say, 'Are you a scientist?' That representation becomes really important,” she reflects. Her work researching culturally relevant teaching continues to broaden what science education can be and who it can serve.
Professor Ioana Literat brings a similarly expansive vision to her work in the Technology, Media, and Learning program. As Program Director and Associate Director of the Media & Social Change Lab, Dr. Literat studies how young people learn, create, and participate civically in digital spaces. Moreover, she brings that same commitment to inclusion into her own classroom. “Women in STEM and in academia are often encouraged to narrow or censor certain parts of themselves to fit certain molds,” she says. In the TML program, she works deliberately against that pressure, creating space for students to show up as whole people. For Dr. Literat, representation isn't just about who is in the room, it's about whose knowledge is valued and whose epistemic authority is seen as legitimate.
Newest to the MST faculty, Dr. Jooeun Shim joined Teachers College in January 2025 with a bold, community-centered approach to STEM education. Through her TAMGU Lab and her courses, she designs learning environments where students don't just absorb knowledge, they ask questions, analyze data, and connect their learning to the world around them. Drawing on her own experience as an Asian woman navigating STEM spaces, where certain voices carry more weight than others, Dr. Shim is intentional about making every student's thinking visible. “When students see that their ideas are there, recognized, and connected to other people's thinking, something shifts,” she says. “They start to see themselves as legitimate contributors, not just recipients of knowledge.”
Together, Drs. Mensah, Literat, and Shim embody the MST Department's commitment to a more inclusive and expansive vision of STEM. Their work reminds us that the future of science, technology, and education depends not only on opening doors, but on ensuring that every student who walks through them is empowered to lead.