Professor Carl Wieman is the 2020 laureate of Yidan Prize for Education Research. He has held a joint appointment as Professor of Physics and of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University since 2013, and before that was at the University of British Columbia and University of Colorado Boulder for 20 years.
He has done extensive experimental research in both atomic physics and science and engineering education at the university level and has received numerous awards for both, including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 and the Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year award for education in 2004.
Professor Wieman directed the Science Education Initiatives at the Universities of Colorado and British Columbia, leading to widespread research-based improvement in university teaching, and transforming the way science is taught in major universities. His book, “Improving How Universities Teach Science; Lessons from the Science Education Initiative”, reflects his efforts in changing STEM education.
Professor Wieman served as founding chair of the Board of Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences and was the founder of PhET Interactive Simulations at the University of Colorado Boulder, which provides online interactive simulations that are used 200 million times per year to learn science. He served as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House from 2010-12.
He is currently studying expertise and problem-solving in science, engineering, and medicine, and how this can be better measured and taught. He has also studied and written on expertise in teaching in higher education and how it can be defined, measured, and developed.
