Crandell, Olivia, Chair
Atkinson, Molly
Collini, Melissa
Connor, Megan
Herridge, Michelle
Hosbein, Katy
James, Nicole
Vincent-Ruz, Paulette
Ward, Lyniesha
The Early Career Chemistry Education Scholars (ECCES) is a committee dedicated to the recruitment and networking of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early faculty members in chemistry education research. This population is vital to the long-term goals of chemistry education research and we hope will be the future leaders and contributors to DivCHED. The field of chemistry education research provides rich opportunities for many, but we hear from a lot of people that they can feel isolated due to the smaller community (as compared to the more traditionally available divisions like organic, physical, etc.). Our primary goal in ECCES is specifically to identify the younger members and ensure that they have a support group where they can talk about research, career development, and other topics related to our unique world as chemistry education researchers
Over the years, this committee started as a grassroots organization and grew to a permanent committee in DivCHED as the Younger Chemistry Education Scholars (YCES) committee. The committee hosted several staple events that seek to bring people together including events related to networking, professional skills development, career materials development, and recruiting/outreach efforts to attract more people into the field of CER. At the 2018 BCCE, our social event brought more than 115 young researchers together for informal social gathering with a few professional activities mixed in. These events help researchers feel as though they have a community to go to when they have questions about their research.
In 2022, the DivCHED approved the committee’s request to formally change the name of the committee to Early Career Chemistry Education Scholars (ECCES), to become more inclusive of graduate students, postdocs, and pre-tenure faculty of any age. Our current activities include hosting the Graduate Student Research symposium at BCCE and Spring ACS meetings to provide a supportive environment for graduate students to present their budding research and organizing networking events to connect our early career scholars together.
Additionally, ECCES has sponsored a blog featuring articles from the community about research, professional development, and work-life balance for those in chemistry education research. This blog is one of our staple tools in informing people about what life is like as a young chemistry education researcher.
Because ECCES does so many things related to chemistry education research, we frequently collaborate with the Chemistry Education Research Committee (CERC). The two committees have co-sponsored professional events and an annual poster competition at the national ACS meetings. We look forward to future collaborations with this and other DivCHED committees. Additionally, we also have collaborated with the ACS Division Younger Chemists Committee (YCC). This organization clearly has some overlap with the goals of ECCES and we have been known to co-host events with them as well.
Updated July 2022