Postdoctoral Research Award 2025

Stephanie Halmo, postdoctoral research associate in the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, studies metacognition and STEM education under the mentorship of Associate Professor Julie Stanton. Halmo’s work examines how undergraduate life science students develop metacognitive skills, providing key insights into improving science education. She leads the College Learning Study, a large-scale longitudinal project tracking students’ metacognitive skill use and development across four years of college. She has advanced qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, including discourse analysis, to assess how students regulate their thinking during problem-solving. Her research has resulted in multiple first-author publications in CBE–Life Sciences Education and attracted nearly $350,000 in NSF funding as a sole principal investigator—an extraordinary achievement for a postdoctoral scholar. With a growing national and international reputation, Halmo’s research is shaping how educators understand and support student learning in STEM, positioning her as a leader in discipline-based education research.