The purpose of the Chemical Education Research (CER) Committee is to inform educators about chemical education research, to foster scholarship, and to encourage improvement in the quality of chemistry education research. This vision is achieved through a variety of avenues for educators to learn about CER, while providing a platform that highlights work and methods within the field.
The current leadership of CERC (past chair Nikita Burrows, chair Elizabeth Day, and chair-elect Regis Komperda) are working to implement changes in the committee structure and activities to best align with the revised vision and mission of the committee and the DivCHED Strategic Plan.
Since our last report, CERC has organized and supported initiatives that align with the DivCHED Strategic Plan:
- National ACS Symposia: Elizabeth Day and Brandon Yik served as symposium coordinators and managed the efforts of both CERC committee members and volunteers external to the committee. We offered four symposia in 2026: Research in Chemistry Education at Spring 2026 ACS (Atlanta), New & Noteworthy and Putting CER into Practice at BCCE 2026 (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Research in Chemistry Education at Fall 2026 ACS (Chicago). These symposia were organized and presided by committee members Gina Frey, Doug Mulford, Alena Moon, and Josie Nardo and supplemented by volunteers Matt Wu, Danielle Maxwell, Megan Connor, Jenna Tashiro, Jackie Fajardo, Li Ye, Sachel Villafane-Garcia, and Resa Kelly.
- Collaborative Efforts: CERC is partnering with ChemEd X to recruit and organize chemistry education researchers to write reviews of methodological resources to be hosted on ChemEd X. This effort required a summer meeting at BCCE to discuss future plans and democratically nominate two associate editors for consideration to manage this effort.
- Budget and Funding Support: For 2026, CERC spent its $3,000 budget on reimbursements for volunteers who presided over national symposia. This use of our budget demonstrates DivCHED commitment to access and equity.
- Updated OPS manual to reflect the new committee roles, the migration of listserv duties to the Public Relations committee, and update the timeline of expected activities.
Through the end of 2026, we have several plans, including:
- Sustained symposia and conference presence: We will continue organizing symposia for ACS national meetings in 2027. These events will continue to showcase cutting-edge CER while providing volunteer opportunities and funding to chemistry education scholars looking to become more involved with DivCHED. We are also looking into partnerships with other divisions, such as ENVR and HIST.
- Putting together a SPOC proposal for funds to support the curation of methodological resources project. These funds would go toward incentives to researchers to write these reviews.
- Reaching out to the Public Relations committee to conduct a survey of DivCHED to identify the methodological resources of greatest interest to the community, to target our curation efforts.
- Recruit early career researchers for the DivCHED webinar series.
$3,000
We spent on reimbursements to committee volunteers for presiding at national symposia.
The outcome was increased participation of non-committee members and people getting started in chemistry education research.