I’m Dr. Alexander Eden, an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Center for Learning Innovation at the University of Minnesota Rochester.

I’m a biology educator, researcher, and storyteller interested in how people learn science, and in everything they bring with them when they do. My work asks how students’ identities, cultures, interests, and lived experiences shape the ways they engage with science, navigate educational spaces, and come to see themselves as people who belong there.

That question has taken my research in some fun directions. I study culture and belonging in STEM, educational pathways and student support, and the ways interests like games, fandom, and popular culture can become meaningful resources for science learning. Whether I am studying community cultural wealth, Pokémon, help-seeking, or my own experiences as an educator and learner, I keep coming back to the same idea: students already know, care about, and carry more into our classrooms than we sometimes recognize.

I also believe science education should be rigorous without losing its sense of curiosity, creativity, or joy.

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