Leah Wiitablake (she/her) grew up in Southern California where she attended community college before transferring to California State University – Fullerton, a primarily Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), as an art major. There she began studying Animation & Entertainment Design before finding and eventually switching to Geology.
During her undergraduate years, Leah worked as an associate director for the K-12 Shakespeare program Much Ado About Shakespeare, LLC., where she taught Shakespearian acting classes across the Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties, and as far north as Mammoth Lakes, before working as a ride operator at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA.
After graduation, Leah moved across country to work on her Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University focused on geoscience education research (GER). During her time at Clemson University, Leah worked as a Research Assistant (RA) on various grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Education. As a graduate RA, Leah worked on designing and assessing virtual reality (VR) field experiences for geology courses as a way of expanding access of field experiences to students in classrooms. Leah has worked on the development of robotics textbooks as Open educational resources leading several groups of undergraduate students at two different universities across two separate states. This mentorship included guiding the students through reviews of the Open robotics textbook chapters written by the authoring team specifically for student-centered practices and looking for ways with which to implement the Universal Design for Learning principles (CAST, 2024).
As a Teaching Assistant (TA), Leah had the pleasure of teaching upper-division geology lab courses such as Structural Geology and Sedimentology & Stratigraphy, lower-division Physical Science laboratories focused on physics, chemistry, and Earth science, as well as working as a TA helping to implement active-learning strategies in a large lecture, introductory geoscience course of up to 235 students.
Additionally, Leah had the privilege of working for the Department of Engineering and Science Education designing recruitment and marketing materials for the department as part of her job focused on marketing and outreach.
Leah’s research interests include a focus on undergraduate students perceptions of the geosciences and geoscience careers, especially given the climate crisis, and is particularly interested in hearing from students from traditionally minoritized racial and ethnic groups about their perceptions of geology.
Leah Wiitablake 