Postdoctoral Education Research Fellows

Liz Roth-Johnson is a Discipline Based Education Research (DBER) Fellow in the Department of Life Sciences Core Education. Dr. Roth-Johnson completed her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at UCLA and her B.A. degrees in Molecular & Cell Biology and Music at UC Berkeley. She has extensive research experience in the field of cell biology: she has applied techniques in biochemistry, microscopy, and genetics to studying  protein trafficking in yeast (as an undergraduate) and the cytoskeleton’s role in fruit fly egg development (as a graduate student). Her teaching interests are similarly varied, as she has taught both molecular biology to science majors (LS XL 3) and introductory food science to non-science majors (PHYSCI 7). Dr. Roth-Johnson has also developed a keen interest in science writing and informal science education. As a graduate student, she worked with UCLA’s science outreach program Science & Food, and co-founded the K-8 science and engineering outreach program BEAM at UCLA. Shortly after graduating, she then spent a summer working as a science reporter at KQED through the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship Program. Through her education research, Dr. Roth-Johnson is dedicated to improving undergraduate education through incorporation of active learning strategies and quantitative reasoning into large-enrollment life sciences courses. Long term, she is interested in fostering collaborations with community partners to incorporate service learning and other high-impact practices into introductory level science courses.