Atwater voted president-elect of NARST

Mary M. Atwater, a professor of science education in the College of Education, has been voted president-elect of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST).  She is the first African American to be elected to this NARST position.

Atwater is an Inaugural Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She led the effort to establish NARST's first Research Interest Group, Continental and Diasporic Africa Science Education, and currently serves as its elected director.

Atwater received a $100,000 National Science Foundation grant in 2012 to develop a Mini-Symposia for Developing Black Scholars in Science Education for the 21st Century in the United States. The first of two symposiums was held in June, 2013. She is also the lead co-editor of the book, "Multicultural science education: Preparing teachers for equity and socialjustice," published in 2014.

Atwater served on the Science Standards Committee of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in 2011 which created the standards now required for Board certification. She also served as an original member of the NBPTS' Early Adolescence/Science Standards Committee from 1991-98.

An 8th grade science textbook first written by Atwater in 1993 titled, Using Energy, was heralded around the world as the inspiration and guide for a 14-year-old African boy's quest to build a windmill that provided electricity for his family and village for the first time, after a book was published in 2009 about his experience.