Roger Beaty, assistant professor of psychology, was recently named recipient of the Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship by the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) at Penn State.
Beaty was awarded the professorship to continue his work studying the psychology and neuroscience of creative thinking in science education.
“The early career professorship will support our lab's research examining how education impacts creative thinking and brain network development in adolescents,” said Beaty. “Historically, creativity has not been a core part of education, and creativity in science and its value for education is largely understudied. Our goal is to measure and understand how creative thinking in science affects the brain and how to enhance creativity in education.”
To do this, the research team will collaborate with high school science teachers in Pennsylvania to integrate creative thinking exercises into their existing science classes and conduct longitudinal neuroimaging studies to assess how this “creativity curriculum” influences the adolescent brain.
The team will help teachers implement this curriculum, which was designed to boost scientific creativity in adolescences. The curriculum includes exercises to teach students how to design scientific experiments and to evaluate their own hypotheses, as well as to build their creative self-confidence.
The team will then conduct assessments to determine which pieces of the curricula are most effective in promoting student learning and brain development.
Beaty hopes to use the data to expand the project into other as part of a larger, externally funded project.
Other support for the project comes from the Center for Science and the Schools in Penn State’s College of Education.
Beaty received his PhD in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and completed his postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at Harvard University.
The Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship provides supplemental funding to faculty members working in developmental neuroscience. The award rotates every three years to a new recipient in the first 10 years of her or his academic career, providing seed money for innovative research projects.
The professorship was created by Graham’s daughter, Mary Graham, to honor her late mother, who began her career in social and behavioral sciences as a Penn State undergraduate.
More information on the professorship award, including the application process, can be found at SSRI’s professorship website.