Quentin Sedlacek

Quentin Sedlacek is an Assistant Professor of STEM Education at the Simmons School of Education and Human Development. He holds a B.A. in Physics from Harvard University, an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph.D. in Race, Inequality, and Language in Education and Teacher Education from Stanford University. Prior to attending Stanford, he taught science and mathematics for five years at public schools in Mississippi and American Sāmoa. During his doctoral studies, he co-founded a peer mentorship program for graduate students and organized a yearlong event series centering the perspectives of LGBTQ+ people of color in education. After completing his Ph.D., he served as a postdoctoral STEM education researcher in the College of Science at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Dr. Sedlacek’s interdisciplinary research applies frameworks from social psychology, sociology, and linguistic anthropology to examine STEM education and teacher education from elementary school through adulthood. He seeks to understand how science teaching influences opportunities for student empowerment by reproducing or contesting hegemonic relations of language, race, and gender. In particular, he is interested in the roles that racialized and gendered ideologies of language play in shaping teacher practices and student experiences. To pursue this research, Dr. Sedlacek draws upon a diverse methodological toolbox including interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, surveys, and experiments. His teaching and professional development work focus on equitable STEM education, reading and writing in science classrooms, and culturally relevant pedagogy.

Some of his most recent work has appeared in the International Journal of Science Education, Review of Research in Education, and the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education.