Rate My Professor Justice Walker

Dr. Justice Walker serves as Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Division (STEM Education) within the College of Education at The University of Texas at El Paso, holding a courtesy appointment in the Biological Sciences Department of the College of Science since August 2020. Prior appointments include Postdoctoral Fellow in the Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Division at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (2019-2020) and Instructor in Cellular Biology and Genetics at LaSalle University Department of Biology (2019-2020). Dr. Walker possesses over a decade of K-12 teaching experience as a high school biology and biotechnology instructor at the Islamic Saudi Academy (2012-2015), Friendship Public Charter School (2008-2012), and other public schools, complemented by summer courses at Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (2013-2016). Academic credentials comprise a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania (2019, thesis: "When Biology Learning Paradigms Shift: What Middle School Students Know, Think, and Learn about Synthetic Biology"), M.S. in Biopharmaceutical and Engineering Biotechnologies from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science (2012), and B.S. in Biology and English Literature from the University of Miami (2005).

Dr. Walker's research specializations encompass synthetic biology education, biotechnology in K-12 and higher education, culturally relevant data analytics and computer science interventions, biomakerspaces, electronic textiles for computational thinking, equity in STEM education, and socioscientific issues in biology learning. Career highlights include principal investigator on NSF Grant #2137708 ($299,949, 2021) supporting data mining techniques for high school computing education and co-principal investigator on NSF Grant #2215849 ($299,950, 2022), U.S. Department of Education award ($734,992, 2022), alongside awards such as Hopper Dean CS Education Center of Excellence Faculty Fellow (2022-2023) and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention (2017). Key publications feature "Rahimi, S., Walker, J.T., Shin, J., Lin, L. (2023). Toward Defining and Assessing Creativity in Sandbox Games. Creativity Research Journal"; "Walker, J.T., Stamato, L., Asgarali-Hoffman, N., Hamidi, F., Scheifele, L. (2022). Community Labs: BioMakerspaces for Life Science Learning and Doing. Public Understanding of Science"; "Walker, J.T. (2021). Middle School Student Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Biotechnology. Journal of Science Education and Technology"; "Walker, J.T. & Kafai, Y.B. (2021). The Biodesign Studio: Constructions and Reflections of High School Students on Making with Living Media. British Journal of Educational Technology"; and "Fields, D.A., Kafai, Y.B., Morales-Navarro, L., Walker, J.T. (2021). Debugging by Design... British Journal of Educational Technology." Dr. Walker holds editorial roles as editor of Global Community Bio Summit proceedings (2021, 2022), reviews for Journal of Research in Science Teaching and others, and serves on UTEP committees including Teaching, Learning and Culture Doctoral Program Committee, Teacher Education Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and Hispanic Servingness Research Council, advancing equitable STEM practices at a Hispanic-serving institution.