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Biography
Dr. Krist's research examines how science learning environments can be structured to support students' epistemic agency, sense of belonging, and authority as knowers, with particular attention to students and communities who are systematically marginalized in STEM. This work spans three levels of design: classroom practice, course structure, and community partnership. Her projects include developing professional development models that support K-12 teachers in building community partnerships for justice-centered science teaching, supporting the structural redesign of introductory undergraduate STEM courses to strengthen students' epistemologies and sense of belonging, and collaborative work with families and local communities to drive educational transformation. Several current projects extend this agenda to new domains, including the use of generative AI to support teacher planning and the development of strengths-based approaches to understanding student engagement.
Dr. Krist received her PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University in 2016 and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland from 2016-2017. Her early career work has been supported by an NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship as well as grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She was recently recognized with NARST’s 2023 Early Career Research Award.
Dr. Krist received her PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University in 2016 and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland from 2016-2017. Her early career work has been supported by an NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship as well as grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She was recently recognized with NARST’s 2023 Early Career Research Award.
Other titles
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
Program affiliations
CTE
CTE: Science Education
Learning Sciences and Technology Design (LSTD)
(MA) STEP
Research interests
Classroom Discourse and Interaction | Community-Engaged Research | Design-based research | Learning Sciences | Qualitative Methods | Research-Practice Partnerships | Science Education | Teacher Education | Teacher Learning | Teacher Professional Development
Recent publications
Shah, N., Stroupe, D., Yadav, A., Bernhard, T., Logan, C., Dyer, E. B., … Li, T. (2026). Refusing Educational Technology: Artificial Intelligence, Inequity, and the Problem of Critical Optimism. EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER.
Mathayas, N., & Krist, C. (2025). Re-Indexing Epistemic Responsibility: A Grammatical Analysis of How a Teacher Made Space for Students' Epistemic Agency. JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING.
Krist, C. S., Hall, K., Hoang, N., Hug, B., Ko, M.-L. M., Logan, L. H., … Wingert, K. (2025). Where Do We Start And Where Do We Go? Emerging Findings Informing the Design of Responsive Professional Learning With Secondary Science Teachers. International Conference on the Learning Sciences ..., 2025, 2877–2879.
