Dr. Alfonso Garcia Arriola, (back row, third from right) with the Albert Einstein Fellows 2022-23. Photo: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Science.
Portland State University alumnus Alfonso Garcia Arriola, EdD, has been selected for the 2022-23 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship. Now in its 32nd year, the prestigious Fellowship is managed by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, (#EinsteinFellows22). For 11 months, he will be working on Science Education policy in the U.S. House of Representatives in the office of Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Garcia Arriola grew up in Mexico, and attended high school in San Diego, but it was a fateful conversation in Spokane that set him on the path to science education. None other than the young Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, was the harbinger of things to come. Alfonso asked him, “How does one get into that field?” And the advice was simple: “Learn science, speak French, have a teaching license.”
He went on to earn his undergraduate degree in Biology and his teaching license at Gonzaga University before coming to PSU, where he completed his doctorate in Educational Leadership with an emphasis in Curriculum and Instruction from the College of Education in 2017.
The Albert Einstein Distinguished Fellowship Program (AEF) is coordinated by Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE). This year, it chose 15 teachers nationwide to apply classroom experience in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), to federal and congressional branch offices. Dr. Garcia Arriola has taught science in middle school for 24 years, and is currently a science educator in Portland Public School’s ACCESS Academy, a school for talented and gifted students. He plans to return at the end of the Fellowship.
There is something very exciting he wants to share with his students in the classroom, and it is part of what he will be spearheading in Washington. This is the narrative about partnerships between scientists and science educators. During the past two summers, through the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, he’s partnered with the Oregon National Primate Center’s Dr. Larry Sherman on multiple sclerosis research, looking for new treatments from plants. When he returns to Portland, his students will get to join in the research, too, looking at cellular slides from the center. “We take what we learn from our summer research experience into the classroom,” says Dr. Garcia Arriola, “and this makes the learning more real for students, seeing the greater purpose.”
Collaboration across disciplines, and trans-disciplinary learning is another project he is interested in championing in Washington. “For example, if we ask students to design and build a vegetable garden, there is math, there is environmental science, there is a social context, and there is the designing of the label if we are going to make salsa and sell it. The learning is much more real than the old way of doing things,” says Dr. Garcia Arriola.
While in Washington, he is one of five Fellows serving in a congressional office. (Meet the Fellows 2022-23 on the DOE, Office of Science website..) Ten Fellows are placed with other sponsoring agencies including the Library of Congress, U.S. Dept. of Defense, U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation, Dept. of Homeland Security, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is an amazing opportunity to network with other Fellows, education leaders, and policy makers, key components of the program, along with professional development events every month.
His doctoral research at Portland State University focused on improving professional development opportunities for science educators. In 2022, he attended commencement at PSU again, this time for his daughter, who graduated with a degree in Bio-Chemistry. His younger daughter is studying economics at Santa Clara University in California.
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