Asli Sezen-Barrie
Biography
Asli Sezen-Barrie, Ph.D., is the Stacey Nicholas Endowed Chair of Environmental and Climate Change Education and Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, where she also serves as Faculty Advisor for Environmental and Climate Change Literacy projects. Prior to joining UC Irvine in 2024, Sezen-Barrie served as Program Lead for Discovery Research PreK-12 at the National Science Foundation, where she oversaw a program budget of more than $50 million and led 14 program officers in proposal review and award recommendation. She received a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction (Science Education) from The Pennsylvania State University, with a minor in Educational Psychology.
Sezen-Barrie's research focuses on climate change education and science teacher education, with particular attention to how teachers and students engage with epistemic practices and data investigations in science classrooms. Her work examines the cultural-historical dimensions of teaching and learning, including how teachers navigate tensions in implementing climate change curricula and how students construct explanatory models of climate phenomena. She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on multiple National Science Foundation grants, including the WeatherX project engaging rural youth in data science through investigations of extreme weather.
Sezen-Barrie is Editor-in-Chief of two volumes of the Handbook of Climate Change Research in Transdisciplinary Education published by Springer Nature and Section Editor for Climate and Environmental Education at Science Education. She serves as an officially appointed committee member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report Education for Thriving in a Changing Climate. Sezen-Barrie served as Chair of the Research Committee of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching from 2020 to 2022 and Chair of the American Educational Research Association Environmental Education Special Interest Group from 2021 to 2024.
Return to topEducation
- Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction (Science Education), The Pennsylvania State University, 2011
- M.A. in Educational Sciences, Boğaziçi University, 2007
- B.S. in Science Education, Boğaziçi University, 2004
Distinctions
- NARST (National Association for Research in Science Teaching) Fellow, 2026
- Outstanding Empirical Article Award, Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2024
- National Science Foundation Service Award, 2024
- Top Cited Article, Wiley / Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2023
- Facilitators Choice Award, NSF 2022 STEM for All Video Showcase, 2022
- Inducted to Phi Kappa Phi National Academic Honor Society, 2022
- Nominee, Early Career Research Award, NARST (National Association for Research in Science Teaching), 2018
- Leading Faculty for Middle School Science Major, Outstanding Middle Level Teacher Education Program Award, National Association of Professors of Middle Level Education, 2015
- Invited Scholar, Turkish Prime Minister's Office panel on framing future projects for European Research Council (ERC) Grants on Science, Technology, and Education, 2015
- Inducted to Sigma Pi Sigma National Physics Honor Society, 2011
Areas of Expertise
- Climate Change Education
- Scientific Practices
- Science Teacher Learning
- Data Stories / Stories
- Culture of Science
- Planet First AI
Recent Publications
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Kang, H., Stapleton, M. K., Lanouette, K., Taylor, K. H., Tasquier, G., Park, W., Waight, N., St. Vil, C., Tripp, J., Mozaffari, F., Fitzmaurice, H. L., Barton, J. C., Wilkerson, M. H., Reigh, E. V., Dunhill, G., “Climate Education for Justice: Navigating Geographies, Data, and Agency” (opens in new tab), International Society of the Learning Sciences, pp. 2354-2362, 2025. Presented at 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2025.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Windschitl, M., Nxumalo, F., “Transformative climate and environmental education for a just future” (opens in new tab), Science Education, vol. 109, no. 3, pp. 715-721, 2025.
- Cleveland, A., Sezen-Barrie, A., Peterson, F., Lindsay, S., “Quantitative Reasoning Competencies for Student Success in Introductory Biology” (opens in new tab), Journal of College Science Teaching, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 212-226, 2025.
- Fensie, A., Pierre, T. S., Jain, J., Sezen-Barrie, A., “Engaged learning during distraction: A case study of successful working moms in distance education” (opens in new tab), Journal of Computing in Higher Education, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 389-434, 2024.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Stapleton, M. K., Marbach-Ad, G., Miller-Rushing, A., “Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students' Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters” (opens in new tab), Education Sciences, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 496, 2023.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Carter, L., Smith, S., Saber, D., Wells, M., “Research and scholarship during the COVID-19 pandemic: A wicked problem” (opens in new tab), Innovative Higher Education, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 501-525, 2023.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Louie, J., Roche, B., Fegan, E., Buffington, P., Fitzgerald, B., Morrison, D. L., “Student Reflections on Data Investigations of Local and Extreme Weather: A Cultural Historical Activity Theory Perspective” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of International Conference of the Learning Sciences Icls, International Society of the Learning Sciences, pp. 2050-2051, 2022. Presented at 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2022.
- Cleveland, A., Sezen-Barrie, A., Marbach-Ad, G., “The conceptualization of quantitative reasoning among introductory biology faculty” (opens in new tab), Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. e00203-21, 2021.
- Fensie, A., Sezen-Barrie, A., “Embodied discourse analysis of online student study sessions: A novel method of screen recording research” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of International Conference of the Learning Sciences Icls, International Society of the Learning Sciences, pp. 931-932, 2021. Presented at 15th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2021.
Most Cited Publications
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Shea, N., Borman, J. H., “Probing into the sources of ignorance: Science teachers' practices of constructing arguments or rebuttals to denialism of climate change” (opens in new tab), Environmental Education Research, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 846-866, 2019.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Kelly, G. J., “From the teacher's eyes: Facilitating teachers' noticings on informal formative assessments (IFAs) and exploring the challenges to effective implementation” (opens in new tab), International Journal of Science Education, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 181-212, 2017.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Stapleton, M. K., Marbach-Ad, G., “Science teachers' sensemaking of the use of epistemic tools to scaffold students' knowledge (re)construction in classrooms” (opens in new tab), Journal of Research in Science Teaching, vol. 57, no. 7, pp. 1058-1092, 2020.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Miller-Rushing, A., Hufnagel, E., “It's a gassy world: Starting with students' wondering questions to inform climate change education” (opens in new tab), Environmental Education Research, vol. 26, pp. 1-22, 2019.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Marbach-Ad, G., “Cultural-historical analysis of feedback from experts to novice science teachers on climate change lessons” (opens in new tab), International Journal of Science Education, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 497-528, 2021.
- Sezen-Barrie, A., Tran, M., McDonald, S. P., Kelly, G. J., “A cultural-historical activity theory perspective to understand preservice science teachers' reflections on and tensions during a microteaching experience” (opens in new tab), Cultural Studies in Science Education, vol. 9, pp. 675-697, 2014.
Contact Information
Email: asli.sezenbarrie@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-4280
Address: 2040 Education
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Last updated on 10/28/2026.