Rate My Professor Thomas Philip

Thomas M. Philip is a Professor in the Berkeley School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where he serves as the Faculty Director of the Berkeley Teacher Education Program. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 1998, an M.A. in Education from UC Berkeley in 2004, and a Ph.D. in Cognition and Development from UC Berkeley in 2007. Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty in 2019, Philip was an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a high school teacher in Los Angeles.

Philip's research examines how teachers make sense of power and hierarchy in classrooms, schools, and society, and how they navigate and transform these spaces toward more equitable, just, and democratic practices and outcomes. His interests include the role of ideology in shaping learning, the possibilities and tensions of artificial intelligence and digital learning technologies in education, and issues of race, equity, and teacher solidarity. His scholarship appears in journals such as Journal of the Learning Sciences, Cognition and Instruction, Science Education, Harvard Educational Review, and Journal of Teacher Education. Key publications include Philip, T.M., Gupta, A., Turpen, C., & Elby, A. (2018). Why ideology matters for learning: A case of ideological convergence in an engineering ethics classroom discussion on drone warfare. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 27(2), 183-223; Philip, T.M. & Azevedo, F.S. (2017). Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain. Science Education, 101(4), 526-532; and The Politics of Learning Writing Collective (2017). The learning sciences in a new era of U.S. nationalism. Cognition and Instruction, 35(2), 91-102.

Philip is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the International Society of the Learning Sciences. His awards include the AERA Division K Midcareer Award, AERA Division G Early Career Award, AERA Division C Jan Hawkins Award, National Association for Multicultural Education Research Award, and National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. Under his leadership, the Berkeley Teacher Education Program received the 2023 AERA Division K Award for Innovations in Research on Equity and Social Justice and the 2024 UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Advancing Excellence and Equity. He serves as Vice Chair of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate for 2025-2026, chairs the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Campus Climate, and is a co-principal investigator on the NSF National AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming.