Prof. Ir. Nizam, M.Sc., DIC, Ph.D. is a lecturer with the status of Professor of Civil Engineering from Gadjah Mada University (UGM). He won a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of London, UK.

He has served as Secretary of the Council of Higher Education (DPT) from 2008-2013. He has also held the position of Head of the Education Assessment Center at the Ministry of Education and Culture.

He was one of the people who took part in the core team for the preparation of the Higher Education Law in 2012, the 2013 Medical Education Law, and the Engineering Law in 2014. He has also made many scientific publications. He has also won many awards. Prof. Nizam was given the mandate as Director-General of Higher Education (Dirjen Dikti) since July 21, 2020.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Samsul has been serving as the Rector of Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, since 2012. He completed his B.E. degree from the same university in 1987, and finished his Master of Engineering (M.Eng) and Ph.D. degrees from Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, in 1998 and 2001 respectively, both in Mechanical Engineering. He joined Syiah Kuala University as a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1988 and was appointed as a Vice Rector for Academic Affairs from 2006-2012. In 2001, Toyahashi City appointed him as a Toyohashi Goodwill Ambassador. Prof. Dr. Ir. Samsul’s research interests include fracture mechanics, computational mechanics, and damage mechanism of composite structure. Prof. Dr. Ir. Samsul has been instrumental in leading the revitalization of the Indonesia (Malaysia) and Thailand (IMT-GT) University Network (UNINET) Growth Triangle. Sustainable economic development and solutions for sustainable communities are UNINET’s main goals and there is a strong focus on person-to-person initiatives, such as in the STEM education field by forming the Unsyiah STEM Research Center that will reach groups that are rarely heard like students and the community local.

Mrs. Eugenia Etkina is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She holds a PhD in physics education from Moscow State Pedagogical University and has more than 35 years of experience teaching physics. She is a recipient of the 2014 Millikan Medal, awarded to educators who have made significant contributions to teaching physics, and is a fellow of the AAPT. Professor Etkina designed and now coordinates one of the largest programs in physics teacher preparation in the United States, conducts professional development for high school and university physics instructors, and participates in reforms to the undergraduate physics courses. In 1993 she developed a system in which students learn physics using processes that mirror scientific practice, Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), which is described in this book. She is the lead author of the textbook College Physics: Explore and Apply and the Active Learning Guide. Professor Etkina has conducted over 130 workshops for physics instructors, and published over 100 peer-refereed articles.

Mr. Gorazd Planinsic is a Professor of Physics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has a PhD in physics from the University of Ljubljana. Since 2000 he has led the Physics Education program, which prepares almost all high school physics teachers in the country of Slovenia. He started his career in MRI physics and later switched to physics education research. During the last 10 years, his work has mostly focused on the research of new experiments and how to use them more productively in teaching and learning physics. He is co-founder of the Slovenian hands-on science centre House of Experiments. Professor Planinsic is co-author of more than 80 peer-refereed research articles and more than 20 popular science articles, and a co-author of College Physics: Explore and Apply and the Active Learning Guide. He is a recipient of the GIREP medal for his contributions in Physics Education and he is a fellow of IOP.

Professor Dato’ Dr. Noraini Idris is an educator, consultant, and distinguished mathematic educator. She gained her PhD from The Ohio State University, USA and has been entrusted with the position of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) at Sultan Idris Education University as well as well as Dean of the Faculty of Education at University of Malaya. She published a variety of national and international academics publications to her credit and is a Fulbright Research Fellow. Subsequently, she presented papers both nationally and internationally and conducted several researches with UNESCO, the British Council, Australian Universities – such as Melbourne, Sydney and the Sumitomo, Japan. Her research areas are mathematics education, teacher education, computer-assisted assessment, higher education, and comparative education. She has been the principal investigator for a a government-funded research on Development of A Teacher Education Model for Preparing Quality Teachers for The Future and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM). She is an active research member on Classroom for Teaching and Learning of Mathematics research team comprises of USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, and China. She is also an International Editorial Advisor/Reviewer for Journal of Mathematics Education, USA and Research Academic Journal, USA. Among her distinctions are the Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Awards- the only Asian recipient for the project on Minority Young Scholars Project and the Graduate Research Alumni Student Award from Ohio State University, a Gold Medal for ITEX (Geneva, 2005) and Best Award at MTE 2007, 2009 on designing assessment system for school-based assessment and higher education on Gold Medal at ITEX 2011, 2013, 2014 for designing Module of Teacher Education. Most recently, she has been awarded the Leadership STEM 2018 from the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA) and Visionary Leadership Category from the International Education Award 2018.

Nasser Mansour is a professor of science education. Graduate School of Education at University of Exeter, UK. He has been recognised and promoted by Supreme of Universities in Egypt to Full professor in Science Education at Tanta University. He is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). He is a key member of the accreditation team in UK for Thinking Schools. He received The Best Paper Award of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) Postgraduate and Young Researchers Pre-Conference 2007. He received the University of Exeter ‘Merit Award’ and ‘Above & beyond Award’.

He is currently a member of the Distinguished Contributions to Research Award Committee for National association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), USA. He serves on the editorial board for international journals published in English or Arabic. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Social Science and Humanities Open Journal (Elsevier) and an associate Editor for Thinking Skills and Creativity. He was the external examiner for the Master’s programme at the Faculty of Education, British University in Dubai (2015-2018). He was invited to visit the American University in Cairo (AUC) to join their Distinguished Visiting Professor program in the graduate School of Education from January-May 2017. He was the MSc programme director at Exeter University, UK from 2014-2017.

His research interests are in aspects of teaching and learning in science, including STS (Science, Technology and Society education), Curriculum studies, Inquiry-based learning and teaching, controversial issues, scientific literacy, the relationship between religion and science education; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics STEM, learners’ ideas, misconceptions, alternative conceptions and alternative frameworks, constructivism in science education; learner thinking; creative thinking in science, teaching about the nature of science, science teachers’ beliefs and practices, teacher professional development, Teaching STEM courses, Multi-cultural studies in science education, Grounded Theory, argumentation, debate and dialogue in science education, e-learning, Information Communication Technology ICT, and 21st Century skills.

He published in prestigious education journals such as Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Science Teacher Education, Cultural Studies of Science Education, and Research in Science Education, Computer and Education and European Educational Research. His first book focused on “Models of understanding science teachers’ beliefs and practices: Challenges and potentials for science education”. His recent books “Science Education for Diversity: Theory and Practice (Springer, 2013: Editors Nasser Mansour and Rupert Wegerif)” and another book “Science Education in the Arab Gulf States: Visions, Sociocultural Contexts and Challenges (Published by Sense publishers, 2015)”. His coming new book entitled: STEM in science education and S in STEM: From Pedagogy to learning. Brill Sense Publishers. His recent journal papers entitled: The dissonance between scientific evidence, diversity and dialogic pedagogy in the science classroom published in the International Journal of Science Education, 2020.

Prof. Tom Lowrie was appointed as one of the University’s Centenary Professors in 2014. Tom is the Director of the STEM Education Research Centre (SERC). His previous positions include working as a primary school classroom teacher, teaching mathematics education and research method courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students and working with classroom teachers on curriculum frameworks. Previous administrative positions include being a Head of School, Head of Campus and Research Director of a multidisciplinary research institute. Tom has an established international research profile in the discipline area of mathematics and STEM education. His concentrated and sustained (over 20 years) body of work has focused on the extent to which primary-aged students use spatial reasoning and visual imagery to solve mathematics problems and the role and nature of graphics in mathematics assessment. More recently, his research has expanded to include students’ use of digital tools and dynamic imagery to solve problems and developing spatial curriculum for primary and secondary classrooms. Tom is the Program Director for the Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) project. A nation-wide Australian Government initiative to increase the participation of Australian children in STEM and improve their digital literacy. In the past 5 years, Tom has attracted more than $14 million in nationally competitive research projects, including five ARC Discovery Grants, the Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) project and a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Government Partnerships for Development Grant. He works closely with industry partners including the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the World Bank, The Pearson Foundation and a number of education jurisdictions.

Research Interests:

STEM Practices
Mathematics education
Visual reasoning and spatial ability
Information graphics and dynamic imagery

Dr. Carol O’Donnell is the director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center, which is dedicated to transforming the learning and teaching of science in P–12 classrooms throughout the nation and the world. O’Donnell is responsible for all operational activities and planning for the unit, including building awareness for preschool through 12th-grade science-education reform, conducting programs that support the professional growth of P–12 teachers and school leaders, and overseeing all research and curricular-resource development, philanthropic development and administration. Before joining the Smithsonian, O’Donnell worked at the U.S. Department of Education where she oversaw nearly $17 billion in annual federal investments under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These investments focused on education reform, school improvement, teacher professional development, improved student achievement and assistance for states building their capacity to implement and sustain education reforms and achieve improvement in student outcomes. She also oversaw the cognition and student-learning research program at the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Department of Education. While earning her doctorate at the George Washington University, O’Donnell managed a five-year, National Science Foundation-funded trial aimed at identifying the conditions under which effective middle school science curricular interventions improve student learning and reduce achievement gaps when scaled-up. Her research on curriculum implementation was published in the Review of Educational Research and earned her an “American Educational Research Association Division of Learning and Instruction Graduate Research Award” in 2008. Before attending George Washington University, O’Donnell spent 11 years developing science-curriculum materials for the Smithsonian Science Education Center’s science and technology concepts elementary and secondary programs. O’Donnell began her science-teaching career in Virginia public schools. She currently serves on the part-time faculty of George Washington University’s physics department. O’Donnell earned her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh, her master’s degree in geosciences from Mississippi State University and her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from George Washington University.

Prof. Kagawa was born in Hitachi city of Ibaragi Prefecture, Japan on 15th December 1944. He got his BS and MS degree in the Department of Physics of Konan University, Kobe. He got his Ph.D degree also from Konan University in 1975. He was awarded by Nishina Kinen Foundation in 1975 for his pioneering research contribution on “Color Center Formation due to N2 Laser Light Irradiation”. He became an associate professor of the Department of Physics, Faculty of Education, Fukui University in the following year. During 1987-1988, he stayed in Oregon State University in United States as a guest researcher.

Since 2000, he has been promoted to full professor of the Faculty of Education and Regional Studies of Fukui University. His major field of research is laser spectroscopy, especially on the application of laser to spectrochemical analysis. From 1991, he has been engaged in the cooperative research program with the group of Applied Spectroscopy Laboratory of Graduate Program of Opto-Electrotechniques and Laser Applications of the University of Indonesia. Recently, he has also become interest in the field of Physics Education, developing a unique experiment on the production of artificial snow crystals using simple and readily available equipment. He is a member of Society of Physics, Society of Applied Physics, Laser Society, Spectrochemical Society, Physics Education Society of Japan and Japanese Society of Snow and Ice. Up to now he has published more than 100 papers on various topics in laser induced plasma, laser spectroscopy, laser technology and physics educations field.

Dr. Indrawati is the director of SEAMEO QITEP in Science, a regional Centre located in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, since 2018. She earns her doctoral degree from the Indonesia University of Education in Management of Education in 2013. Before serving as director, she was the Head of Programme and Information Department at CDETEP in Science (PPPPTK IPA). She started her career as a teacher in secondary school then joining CDETEP in Science as an instructor for more than 20 years. During this time, she also held several positions such as the head of research and development department, science journal editor, science instructor coordinator, and so on. At the national level, she was a member of consultant team in the development of Vocational High School Module in Analytical Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, a member of the developer team of Science-Technology-Society (a collaborative program with British Petroleum, British Council, and SEAMEO RECSAM in Science across Asia-Pacific/Science across the World Program), and also became the coordinator of Science National Developer Team for BERMUTU Program. Her research area focuses on Science in elementary school, STEM Learning and its integration into National Curriculum, Managerial skills for the school principal and superintendent, Higher Order Thinking Skills, Pedagogical in the Science Learning, and Student Active Learning Implementation in Elementary School.

I see it as my task to translate my industry experience as a science teacher to my teacher training students in a manner that helps them to build their own professional identity (Bennett, Rowley, Dunbar-Hall, Hitchcock, & Blom, 2014). This is more than career planning or building portfolios of graduate attributes. It is about building a community of primary teacher practitioners who are scientifically literate, confident and competent to inspire and empower their own students and to help them to make sense of their world through science. I have a particular responsibility to engage students with science not only because it is a national objective to educate more maths and science students but also because many students arrive at university somewhat science phobic.