Liang Zeng
Associate Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Email:
liang.zeng@utrgv.edu
Dr. Liang Zeng is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She specializes in physics education and physics teacher education. She is currently serving as the National Physics Teacher Education Coalition Fellow for 2019-2021. She has also served as an ADVANCE Administrative Fellow with the Department of Community Engagement from 2013-2014, when she spearheaded Middle School Challenges event. Dr. Zeng has published 22 peer-reviewed articles in international and national journals. She has incorporated community-engaged scholarship into teaching, research, and service.
In 2019, she published as a first author the peer-reviewed article entitled Enhancing Student Learning in Introductory Physics Through Funds of Knowledge in The Physics Teacher journal. By using examples from regional Mexican-American lived experiences at an Hispanic-serving institution, this paper provides evidence to show how physics educators can use funds of knowledge to engage students in learning introductory college physics concepts. Since 2006, Dr. Zeng has spearheaded community engagement projects and research in the Rio Grande Valley including Physics Day, physics teachers professional development, and physics summer camps.
Her research project on Physics Career Education Day: Design, Implementation, and Assessment was published in the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education in 2018 through Sage Journals. The nation faces critical shortages of Hispanic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college graduates especially in physics. To address youth lack of awareness about physics careers, Dr. Zeng, with the Department Chair, Dr. Soma Mukherjee, and other physics educators, implemented a strategic intervention, Physics Career Education Day, in collaboration with local school districts. Presurvey and postsurvey results have shown that this intervention significantly increased student awareness and interest in physics careers. From 2013 to present, Dr. Zeng has been awarded seven contracts by local school districts to provide professional development for middle school and high school teachers in physics teaching and workshops for talented 7th graders on inquiry-based physics labs.
