Irfanul Alam is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the EBIO department at CU. Dr. Lisa Corwin advises him and is investigating the effects of course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) courses on students’ ability to engage civically with the community using their STEM skills. He employs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches for his investigation and hopes to improve CURE design and assessment of undergraduates’ scientific civic engagement. He has created a survey that can measure predictors of SCE and is currently using the instrument to model differences between CURE courses in the US. Concurrently, he is also leading a case study at the University of Texas at El Paso to explain how students’ social identities impact their level of scientific civic engagement. After completing his doctorate next year, Irfan hopes to continue his work around social identities as a postdoc.
During his spare time, Irfan enjoys tending to his collection of houseplants, cooking, and watching videos of Shiba Inus on YouTube in the hope of adopting one.