Campus Directory

Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself

Division Social Sciences Division

Department/ College/ Unit Education Department

Title Assistant Professor of Science Education

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Environmental Studies Department

Areas of Expertise Science Education
Bilingualism, Multilingualism

Primary Office Location McHenry Library
3122

Office Hours for Students/ Office Hours By appointment

Mail Stop Education Department

Biography, Education and Training

Postdoctoral Fellow, Writing Data Stories, University of California, Berkeley

Postdoctoral Researcher, Science in the City Lab, Stanford University

Ph.D., Science Education, Race, Inequality and Language in Education, Stanford University

M.A., Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, The American University in Cairo, Egypt

B.S., Chemistry, University of Oklahoma

B.A., Letters, University of Oklahoma

Summary of Expertise

K-12 Science Education, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, Raciolinguistic Ideologies, Disciplinary Practices, Social Justice Issues in Science, Environmental Justice, Teacher Learning, Teacher-Researcher Co-Design, Community Partnerships

Research Interests

Emily Reigh studies how to create opportunities for students from minoritized language backgrounds to engage in the disciplinary practices of science.  Her research builds on her experience as science teacher in the United States and Egypt, as well as her background in teaching and learning languages.  She draws from sociocultural and critical theories to study how K-12 science teachers engage students’ existing cultural and linguistic practices, as well as how teachers resist the institutional structures that systematically devalue these resources.  Relatedly, she seeks to expand traditional views of science practices to include embodied sensemaking, storytelling, and historicization.  Emily's most recent project investigates how newcomer students engage with local and global issues of climate justice, focusing on how they connect personal narratives to reasoning about large-scale data sets.  She serves on the leadership council of Science Educators for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice.

Awards, Honors and Grants

Co-Principal Investigator, University of California Office of the President Multicampus Research Projects and Initiatives. Tools for Community-Engagement Initiatives to Educate Youth for an Environmentally Just Future (Total award: $300,000; UCSC Subaward: $69,615). 

Co-Principal Investigator, Hewlett Foundation. Adapting Project-Based Open-Educational Resources to Support Multilingual Learners.  (Total award: $210,993; UCSC Subaward: $26,111)

Co-Principal Investigator, University of California Office of the President Climate Action Grant.  Supporting Teachers in Enacting Justice-Centered Climate Change Pedagogy (Total Award: $1,396,298; UCSC Subaward: $136,732)

Principal Investigator, UCSC Institute for Social Transformation, "Community-Based Climate Justice Learning in Pajaro Valley Schools" ($2,500)

Co-Principal Investigator, California Science Project, Supporting Multilingual Learners in Scientific Sensemaking ($108,000).

Selected Publications

Jadallah, C., Reigh, E., Gyles, S., Azzam, D., Daus, L., Burmester, S., Shin, M., Gonzaga, A., Harlow, D., Bianchini, J., Kang, H. (2026). Cultivating Relational Trust in Community-Engaged Educational Research Partnerships for Environmental Justice. 

Reigh, E., Sayavedra, A., Dunhill, G., Barton, J. C., Slown, C., & Fitzmaurice, H. L. (2025). Justice-Centered Environmental Learning: A Design Tool. In Rajala, A., Cortez, A., Hofmann, R., Jornet, A., Lotz-Sisitka, H., & Markauskaite, L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2025 (pp. 935-943). International Society of the Learning Sciences. 

https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2025.797850

Fitzmaurice, H., Reigh, E., Senn, J. Embracing chaos and letting students lead: A project model for sustainable partner-classroom engagement.  Connected Science Learning. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/24758779.2024.2402286

Reigh, E., Adah Miller, E., Fackler, A., Simani, M., "It’s Just a Hot Mess”: Supporting Teacher Praxis to Challenge Barriers for Multilingual Learners. Science Education. 

https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21917

Adah Miller, E., Reigh, E., Mathis, C. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Practice: A Case Study of a Teacher's Divergence from Large-Scale Science Curriculum. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 

 https://doi.org /10.1002/tea.70017

Reigh, E., Arastoopour Irgens, G., McBride, C., Quiterio, A., Wilkerson, M. (in press). Critical Data Literacies. In M. Winn and L. Winn (Eds). Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Social Justice in Education.

Li, T., Reigh, E., He, P., & Adah Miller, E. (2023). Can we and should we use artificial intelligence for formative assessment in science? Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 60(6), 1-5. https://doi:10.1002/tea.21867

Robillard, S, Reigh, E., Garcia, J., Suzara, M., & Garcia, A. (2023). All hands on deck: exploring how Latinx families in California supported child learning during the initial Covid-19 shutdown. Journal of Family Studies, 1-21.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2023.2219663

Reigh, E., Miller, E., Simani, M. (2023). Towards Equity for Multilingual Learners through the NGSS. Science and Children. 60(4).

Reigh, E., Escudé, M., Bakal, M., Rivero, E., Wei, X., Roberto, C., Hernández, D., Yada, A., Gutiérrez, K., & Wilkerson, M. H. (2022). Mapping racespace: Data stories as a tool for environmental and spatial justice. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, (48), 79-95. DOI: https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1452

Miller, E., Reigh, E., Berland, L., & Krajcik, J. (2021). Supporting equity in virtual science instruction through project-based learning: Opportunities and challenges in the era of COVID-19. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32(6), 1-22.  https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2021.1873549

Courses EDUC 230: Science Education Research and Practice
EDUC 231: Teaching Science in the Secondary Classroom
EDUC 177: Teaching Linguistically Diverse Students