Research Interests:

Dr. Daryl McPadden is a physics education researcher who focuses on developing, sustaining, and understanding collaborative, accessible environments in physics. Daryl’s work started from an interest in curriculum design in active learning classrooms, where she has developed full course materials in University Modeling Instruction, Problem-Based Learning, and Studio formats. Currently, Daryl’s work focuses on understanding disabled students’ experiences in physics, designing accessible curricula, and building student-instructor partnerships to address ableism in physics through the Courses to Careers Workshop (NSF Grants #2336367 & #2336368). She draws on learning theories such as Communities of Practice, Backwards Design, Students as Partners, and Universal Design for Learning to inform this work. More recently, Daryl has extended these frameworks to examine scientific research collaborations as well.

In addition to her research, Daryl is the program director for the Projects and Practices in Physics (P-Cubed) sequence at MSU, and the coordinator of the Electricity & Magnetism P-Cubed course. She works closely with 14-19 undergraduate learning assistants, graduate teaching assistants, and faculty to teach large-scale (240+ student) active learning classes in intro physics each semester. 

Background:

Daryl completed her B.S. in 2013 at Colorado School of Mines in Engineering Physics. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Physics at Florida International University in 2018, with a focus on physics education. Following that, she started at MSU as postdoctoral researcher, then transitioned to assistant professor (fixed-term) in 2019. Outside of work, Daryl loves to ride her bike (particularly along Lake Michigan!), do deep dives into cookbooks (in the middle of The Food Lab at the moment), and bake cakes (especially for nieces & nephews)!

Selected Publications:

• D. McPadden, V. Sawtelle, E.M. Scanlon, J.J. Chini, H. Chahal, R. Levy, and A. Reynolds, Planning for participants varying needs and abilities in qualitative research, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 19, 020143 (2023)
• D. McPadden, E. Brewe, C. Monsalve, and V. Sawtelle, Productive faculty resources activated by curricular materials: An example of epistemological beliefs in University Modeling Instruction, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, 020158 (2020)