Hye Sun You

I am Hye Sun You, a PhD. candidate from the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education program at the University of Texas at Austin. I am currently in candidacy and working on my dissertation. I majored in chemistry in college and studied biology as a minor, and my specialization was medicinal chemistry where the main study was synthesizing medicine. I worked on the synthesis of the Artemisinin contained in the Artemisia annua L. in a bioorganic and medical chemistry laboratory. While working at the laboratory, I volunteered as a tutor at the Yonsei Teaching-Learning Center. Tutoring medical students who had difficulties in understanding organic chemistry. The sense of accomplishment that I felt as I looked at the students' daily progress in organic chemistry and the experience of teaching mathematics and science to high school students as a part-time job have made me want to continue teaching people, help guide them in the right direction, and have the power to help someone. This is why I decided to study at the Graduate School of Education. During my studies in graduate school, I was particularly interested in curricular coherence, both vertically and horizontally. My master’s thesis examined the vertical alignment of high school and college organic chemistry textbooks. After graduation, I worked as a middle and high school science teacher.

During my first two year at UT, I worked as a graduate research assistant in the curriculum and instruction department, participating in several projects with a focus on both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the fall of 2012, I worked as a TA in “knowing and learning”, one of the core courses provided by Uteach. I have participated as a grader for inter-rater reliability in the College Readiness Assignments for Texas (CRAfT) project in the summer of 2013. Also, since spring 2012, I am working as a TA in the “Research Methods in Nutritional Sciences” course in the nutritional science department. I usually take one session among those courses and teach biochemistry and molecular biological techniques such as gel electrophoresis, blotting and nutrient-gene interactions etc. for state-of-the-art research in nutrition.