Maria C. Olivares
Research Assistant Professor
- Title Research Assistant Professor
- Email mariaco@bu.edu
Dr. Olivares is an artist, poet, and research scientist whose work explicitly acknowledges and challenges the role of race and racism as obstacles for achieving equity in STEM through research, practice, professional development, mentoring, and outreach activities for youth and communities of color. Through design-based research, she works with youth, teachers, and researchers to design formal and informal learning environments that support expansive understandings of STEM. Her work centers creative, integrated, and transdisciplinary STEM-inquiry.
Dr. Olivares is originally from South Central Los Angeles, the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants, and the first in her family to gain access to higher education.
Ongoing Research Projects
Selected Publications | Presentations | Social Media
Olivares, M.C., Tucker-Raymond, E., Gravel, B.E. (2019). Intellectual Humility: Desettling Teacher-Student Relationships to Knowledge in STEM. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Baltimore, MD.
*Authors listed in alphabetical order by first name.
Bien, A., Rosebery, A., Warren, B., O’Connor, C., Olivares, M.C., Gadd, R., Arnold, S. (2019). Understanding Ecologies of Textured Relations in Teacher Learning: Classroom Discussion as Participative Thinking. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Philip, T.M., Rocha, J., & Olivares-Pasillas, M. C . (2017). Supporting Teachers of Color as they Negotiate Classroom Pedagogies of Race: A Case Study of a Teacher’s Struggle with “Friendly-Fire” Racism. Teacher Education Quarterly 44 (1), 59-79.
Philip, T.M., Olivares-Pasillas, M.C. , & Rocha, J. (2016). Becoming Racially Literate about Data and Data Literate about Race: Data Visualizations in the Classroom as a Site of Racial-Ideological Micro-Contestations. Cognition & Instruction 34 (4), 361-388.
Philip, T.M. & Olivares-Pasillas, M.C. (2016). Learning Technologies and Educational Equity: Charting Alternatives to the Troubling Pattern of Big Promises with Dismal Results. Teachers College Record , Date Published: August 24, 2016 http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 21616.