Student & Alumni Profiles

Brian Gravel

Hometown: Manchester, ME
Degrees: B.S. Mechanical Engineering; M.S. Mechanical Engineering - Tufts University

I came to Tufts in 1997 as a freshman enrolled in the School of Engineering. During my tenure as an undergraduate, I played soccer for the university and spent a semester at the University of Sussex near Brighton, England. Drawn to Tufts for the variety of educational opportunities available, I became more interested in interdisciplinary work as time passed. I graduated with a B.S. in 2001 and went directly into a Masters program in Comparative Biomechanics. While in graduate school, I held an NSF Fellowship through the GK-12 program which allowed me to teach 5th grade and 9th grade for one year each. In these classes, I worked with teachers to incorporate engineering into math and science curricula. I completed my degree and went on to manage the GK-12 project here at Tufts. This all took place at the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach where I was a program manager from 2003 - 2006. During this time I realized my love of teaching and education and thus I applied for a Ph.D. in the MSTE program. I enrolled in September 2006, and have enjoyed every minute my time here. In addition to the research interests below, I have been involved with the MAT program as a supervisor of pre-service teachers, I have helped to bring urban high school students onto the Tufts campus to expose them to college life, and I generally spent a lot of time piling too many things onto my plate. However, the breadth of opportunity and the wealth of interesting people to work with at Tufts has made my doctoral experience truly enjoyable.

Research Interests: As part of my position at the CEEO, we have developed a piece of software that allows students to make stop-action animations. This program is called SAM Animation, and more information can be found here: http://www.samanimation.com. My doctoral students use SAM and other systems of representation to investigate how the use of multiple systems of representation impacts children’s ideas about science. I hold a firm belief that externalizing understanding in multiple systems helps students clarify and deepen their ideas. Additionally, as researchers we can learn a great deal about the complexity of students’ ideas by asking them to express them in different ways. My advisor is Bárbara Brizuela, who has been a powerful influence in the development of my research interests. She has guided me in developing my theoretical framework, which is expressed in my first qualifying paper titled: Science as Multiple Representations: Integrated perspectives on the role of learning and appropriating representations in the construction of science understanding.