January 2025: Bryan Stanley

About Bryan

“THERE’S SO MUCH SCIENCE, IT MAKES ME GO AHHH!!!” This is what a 1st grader excitedly yelled at me in a school gymnasium when I was an undergraduate.

I was unsure about what to study in college. I enjoyed many seemingly unrelated interests like science, creative writing, web design, knitting, and motorsports. One day, I scrolled through a list of every degree the nearby university, Colorado State University, offered. I latched onto electrical engineering because there was a lasers and optics concentration and I simply thought to myself, “Well lasers are cool.” Two years later, after concluding that building a lightsaber was not in my near future, I realized I enjoyed my physics classes more than my engineering classes.

As an undergraduate, I joined the Little Shop of Physics (LSOP), a traveling science program that visits schools with hundreds of hands-on science experiments. I learned how to build science experiments with hot glue, duct tape, and everyday household items. I built relationships with people that I still am friends with today. My first major event with LSOP was their annual Open House, a free event on campus that regularly hosts over 10,000 people to do science! It was almost overwhelming, but so thrilling that there were so many people excited to learn and explore. It was a weird feeling because I had not even completed my second year of college. I did not feel like an expert, but there were kids and adults asking me questions as if I was one.

One of the first schools I visited with LSOP was where the 1st grader ran up to me to tell me how much fun they were having. It is easy to enjoy what you are doing when the kids are so happy and excited. It wasn’t just the interactions I had with kids and families that I enjoyed; it was the car rides, adventures, and meals spent with the rest of the team. It was a family-like experience that bonded us together.

I initially thought public engagement was something that people did on the side, not something that one could make a career doing. Then, I discovered physics education research. In 2018, I worked as an REU student for J.T. Laverty at Kansas State University. This was my first exposure to all things PER. I learned about LAs, concept inventories, and studio style classrooms. I was in awe that there were people who get to think about all of these ideas centered around physics education. I always liked school, and I would often think about how I would teach a class, but I did not know that there was an entire field of study dedicated to thinking about these concepts.

As a part of the REU, I attended the AAPT and PERC meetings. I attended a session where Claudia Fracchiolla presented on her past experience as a LSOP intern and her research on informal physics programs. I was blown away and waited in line to meet her. While standing in line, I began talking to then-graduate student Brean Prefontaine from Michigan State University, who also did PER on informal physics spaces. Later in that conference, I met Brean’s PhD advisor, Katie Hinko, and talked with her about my experience and interest in informal physics. One year later, I started the PhD program at MSU with Katie as my advisor and with Brean and Claudia as collaborators.

As a graduate student, I blended formal teaching, informal physics, and research, and I still blend these together in my current position as an assistant professor at Lansing Community College. I use my LSOP experience to build a lot of the activities for community events. I bring those same activities into the classroom for my college students to explore. AAPT helped connect me with entire communities of teachers, public engagement practitioners, and researchers, and most recently, two-year college instructors through OPTYCs, such that I can continue blending all of my interests throughout my career.