FIYou: Eric Brewe

Name: Eric Brewe

Hometown: Long Beach, Ind.

Job Title/Department: Assistant Professor of Science Education, Department of Teaching and Learning

Campus: Modesto A. Maidique Campus

In a nutshell: My job is to promote learning science by teaching courses for high school teachers on teaching science, by teaching physics courses that promote student learning and by working with graduate students who all are working to improve science learning in some way.

Number of years at FIU: 5

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I enjoy the variability of it: projects change, students come and then graduate and opportunities arise. I am constantly working with different people and it keeps me interested.

What do you think faculty/staff and students should know about your department? What about FIU – how is the university “Worlds Ahead”?

FIU has made some of the strongest institutional commitments to high-quality science, math and engineering education in the country. These commitments will help advance the understanding of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) learning and make FIU a leader in STEM broadly.

Where is your favorite spot on campus? Why?

VH 165 – it is the classroom that we have been teaching Modeling Instruction in.  The Modeling Instruction courses are great because they have been really fun as a teaching experience, but also as a research venue. I feel like I have seen a number of students experience change as a result of being in these classes.

Family snapshot:

My wife, Crystal, and my daughters Matilda, 7, and Everly, 3.

Word that best describes you: Interested.

First paying job: Lifeguard at Pottawattamie Park Pool.

Favorite TV show: Top Chef.

What is playing on your iPod?

Planet Money and Freakonomics podcasts.

Read any good books lately?

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. He is great, and wrote a nice, non-fiction book that is actually about how the roles of men are changing but not in a theoretical way but instead through stories of his life and relationships with his wife and children.

Your proudest accomplishment:

Some days it is getting my children to school on time. Professionally, I was invited to give a plenary talk at the national Physics Teacher Education Coalition meeting in 2011. Carl Weiman, the Nobel Prize winner, gave the other plenary at the conference, so I felt more respected than is probably deserved.

What do you do when you are not working at FIU?

I run with a running group (iRun) and try to cook good meals.