Christos Zahopoulos to transition to GSE

May 5, 2015

After 24 years in CoE (as a Principal Scientist, Research Professor and
Associate Professor), Christos Zahopoulos, Founder and Executive Director of the
Center for STEM Education and Associate Professor in the College Engineering
will move to the Graduate School of Education, his home tenure Department, as
was previously announced. Below are some highlights of Professor Zahopoulos’
accomplishments:

  • He has been awarded more than 65 grants (more than 50 of them as
    sole PI)     that total close to $30 million from NSF, foundations, the state of
    Massachusetts, school districts, corporations and individual donors.
  • He founded the Center for STEM Education at Northeastern University
    in 2006 and has served as its Executive Director since then, raising the
    University’s visibility on the national STEM arena.
  • He has initiated and implemented numerous STEM Education Programs
    and Partnerships     at the local and national levels that focus on STEM education
    reform, especially in improving STEM Teaching and Learning    .
  • Two of the programs he co-founded (RE-SEED and The Boston Science
    Partnership – BSP)     were mentioned in Science as successful and exemplary.

    • RE-SEED, which he co-founded (with Professor Silevitch – Engineering –
      and the late Professor Cromer – Physics) in 1991 and has been running it
      completely on his own since 1995, is still active and its trained retired STEM
      professionals, have offered more than 800,000 hours of their time as volunteers
      supporting teachers and close to 200,000 students in 14 US states.
    • BSP ($12.5m) one of only five MSP NSF grants in the country that year,
      resulted in substantial increase in Boston Public Schools student performance,
      in teachers’ content knowledge      , in the number of highly qualified teachers, as
      well as in the establishment of two STEM Centers (one by Prof. Zahopoulos at
      Northeastern), in more than 1,200 teachers (teacher-seats) taking the PD
      courses      . These successes resulted in a Phase II NSF MSP grant and in nine
      additional state MSP awards      .
  • He has established a Master of Education (MEd) Degree for Science
    Teachers that leads to Professional Licensure. Close to 80 teachers have
    completed this degree at a highly reduced cost due to grants and scholarships
    that Professor Zahopoulos initiated.
  • He has overseen the development of 12 STEM PD graduate courses (they
    are part of the MEd program), which have been offered to hundreds of K-12
    teachers and has taught four of them multiple times with exceptional success (as
    measured by external evaluators).
  • He developed and offered a series of Professional Development
    seminars on “Improving Teaching and Learning” to more than 100 STEM faculty at
    Northeastern and other Colleges.
  • He has modeled effective teaching to hundreds of K-12 Educators
    around the country    , as part of the Smithsonian Science Education Center’s
    (formerly NSRC and originally part of the National Academies and the
    Smithsonian) LASER Program focusing on sustainable STEM Education reform.
  • He has established an outstanding teaching record in MIE with a
    student evaluation average of 4.8/5.0
  • He enjoys a national reputation in K-12 STEM Education, is a
    recognized national expert in K-12 STEM Education and has been an invited
    speaker and panelist in a many national conferences
  • He has received numerous honors and awards, including
    • the “2005 President’s Aspiration Award” from Northeastern University
    • the “IEEE 2010 Professional Achievement Award for Individuals,”
    • being a Fellow of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences, (since 2011)
  • He has served in numerous state and national STEM Education Boards,
    including

    • the MA Governor’s STEM Advisory Council (2010 – 15) (Appointed by the
      Governor).
    • the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) Advisory Board
      (presently)
    • the AP Higher Education Advisory Committee (APHEC) (presently)
    • the Next Generation of Science Standards State Advisory Group (presently)
  • Finally, Steve McKnight and he co-authored the “Scientific
    Foundations of Engineering” textbook     (Cambridge University Press, July 2015),
    which will be used in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program.