C&I Department Head Fouad Abd El Khalick named AAAS Fellow
by The College of Education / Dec 8, 2011
Fouad Abd El Khalick, Department Head of Curriculum and Instruction, has been elected to the rank of Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
On February 18, 2012, he will be formally inducted with other Fellows whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished,” according to the AAAS Council. Becoming a Fellow is highly competitive and only inducted Fellows can serve as sponsors in the nomination process. According to the AAAS, Abd El Khalick is being recognized “for his outstanding research on teachers’ and students’ conceptions of the nature of science that helped provide a foundation for this field of research.”
Abd El Khalick has been a faculty member at the College of Education since 2000, when he arrived on the U of I campus from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where he was an assistant professor of science education. He earned his Ph.D. in science education from Oregon State University in 1998.
Prior to being named Department Head in September 2011, he held various positions in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, including division chair for mathematics, science, and technology and member of the faculty advisory committee. He has also served as director of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education Collaborative.
Professor Abd El Khalick has had a long history of conducting rigorous and significant research within STEM education, as well as community involvement. Over the past decade, he has secured $6.2 million in research grants for the College of Education.
“Being inducted as an AAAS Fellow is an extraordinary honor and a well deserved recognition of his continued contributions to advancing science education,” said Dean Mary Kalantzis.