UofU professor named a 2023 LGBTQ+ Educator of the Year
Out to Innovate, a professional society and global community of LGBTQ+ students and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, named University of Utah professor Ramón S. Barthélemy as one of three Educators of the Year. This is the 15th year the group recognized professionals who have “significantly impacted STEM students through teaching, counseling, advocacy, and role modeling.”
Barthelemy is an assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the UofU faculty, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and an AAAS Science Policy Fellow. As a Fulbright Fellow, Dr. Barthelemy researched university physics education in Finland. As an AAAS Fellow, he focused on STEM education policies and helped support equity in STEM education. His current position focuses on physics education research, with a broad range of interests, from student learning in the classroom to policies that govern the physics community and impact physics careers. His current research focuses on understanding the social network development of Ph.D. physicists who identify as women and/or as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
This unique project focuses on Ph.D. scientists beyond academia and includes the government and
private sectors. This work aims to better understand how these groups build their professional
networks and navigate them to find their definition of career-related success.
When asked how his life experiences have shaped his perspective as an educator, Dr. Barthelemy believes, “…being queer has impacted how I think about binaries. I do not see the world as a place where there is one incorrect and one correct answer. Rather I see a very complex world in which multiple kinds of explanations and models can be used to understand our lives and the world around us. As a scientist, this dips into ideas of the philosophy of science and how we are not necessarily claiming to have a capital T truth, but instead are working to develop and refine models that help us explain and predict the natural world.”
His nominators noted, “…he combines stellar graduate work in physics education research with some
of the deepest and most significant work on gender and LGBTQ+ issues in physics that has so far
been written.”
When asked what advice he would give his younger self and scientists just beginning their adventures in physics, Barthelemy “…would tell a younger version of me to trust myself and to build a community of people who support one another and want to see each other succeed.”
