Gwen Stovall, Ph.D., is a scientist and educator engaging undergraduate and high school students in authentic research experiences. As the director of The High School Research Initiative (HRI), Dr. Stovall is committed to student empowerment and success, seeking to improve student outcomes by mentoring, teaching, and challenging students and engaging at-risk student groups. As the director of the NIH grant funded program her goal is bring inquiry-based research to high school classrooms across Texas.

Dr. Stovall is part of HRI. Partnering with high school teachers, the HRI offers a yearlong dual-enrollment course in science research. Taught at high school campuses by high school teachers, this unique course combines open-inquiry research the first semester with University-partnered research the second semester. She is a part of a small team of HRI teachers, who train partnered high school teachers for a 3-week of professional training in the summer. The professional training was developed and co-led by a UTeach teacher, who had 10+ years teaching pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers and 15 years of teaching high school. During this professional training, teachers learn the course curriculum, online course management system (Canvas), as well as gain hands-on research experience. Additionally, teachers are trained to teach students how to turn their own curiosity into researchable questions in a scientific way, as well as supervise these 10-20 independent research projects.

The HRI is the result of a partnership between UTeach and the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI), both of which have become national models for science education. Deanna’s teaching includes a range of experiences with middle, high school, undergraduate and graduate students and their teachers including: current undergraduate students in her Research Methods lab, STEP 1 students who are exploring STEM teaching in the College of Natural Sciences, students in university math and science methods courses/student teaching, graduate GK-12 students in professional development, math and science teachers in the field across three states for the National Science Foundation, practicing Texas teachers with the Texas Regional Collaboratives and TEA, and, most recently, high school teachers through the HRI. In addition, she has had a range of experience developing original curriculum (K-12) for organizations such as Summer Wonders, Girlstart, Anaxos, and ACE Academy as well as UT’s Biomedical Engineering for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Deanna Buckley has a Ph.D. from UT Austin, and MS/BS degrees from The University of Southern Mississippi. She taught Biology/Chemistry in public high school (20 yrs), K-8 science at an independent nonprofit for special needs students (15 yrs), and university level for Texas A&M, UT Austin’s Colleges of Natural Sciences and Education, and USM’s College of Science and Technology (9yrs).

Deanna is a part of The University of Texas High School Research Initiative (HRI). Partnering with high school teachers, the HRI offers a yearlong dual-enrollment course in science research. Taught at high school campuses by high school teachers, this unique course combines open-inquiry research the first semester with University-partnered research the second semester. She is a part of a small team of HRI teachers, who train partnered high school teachers for a 3-week of professional training in the summer. The professional training was developed and co-led by a UTeach teacher, who had 10+ years teaching pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers and 15 years of teaching high school. During this professional training, teachers learn the course curriculum, online course management system (Canvas), as well as gain hands-on research experience. Additionally, teachers are trained to teach students how to turn their own curiosity into researchable questions in a scientific way, as well as supervise these 10-20 independent research projects.

The HRI is the result of a partnership between UTeach and the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI), both of which have become national models for science education. Deanna’s teaching includes a range of experiences with middle, high school, undergraduate and graduate students and their teachers including: current undergraduate students in her Research Methods lab, STEP 1 students who are exploring STEM teaching in the College of Natural Sciences, students in university math and science methods courses/student teaching, graduate GK-12 students in professional development, math and science teachers in the field across three states for the National Science Foundation, practicing Texas teachers with the Texas Regional Collaboratives and TEA, and, most recently, high school teachers through the HRI. In addition, she has had a range of experience developing original curriculum (K-12) for organizations such as Summer Wonders, Girlstart, Anaxos, and ACE Academy as well as UT’s Biomedical Engineering for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Deanna’s goal is to provide engaging professional development for HS teachers in the HRI program.

Bailey Williams, M. Ed., has 13 years of high school teaching experience in science and CTE courses. Bailey uses her experience as a former science instructional coach and implementation of the HRI curriculum in her classroom to help guide and inform the curriculum development in the High School Research Initiative program.