Overview

Elizabeth Barnes is Assistant Professor of Biology Education at Middle Tennesse State University.

Prior to this role, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Biology Education Research lab within the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.

Her work explores perceptions of evolution, particularly how individuals view the relationship between religious ideas and evolution. She publishes regularly in biology education journals and presents her work at a multitude of conferences, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). She is also a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Barnes focuses on how to help religious students accept evolution in the context of undergraduate biology classrooms by using culturally competent teaching strategies. She received her Ph.D. in Biology Education at Arizona State University as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and is now working as an NSF funded post-doctoral scholar. Her work on evolution education includes both qualitative and quantitative research approaches and her work has been featured in the media including Scientific American, The Smithsonian, and on the BBC.