Birgitta Mc Ewen

Birgitta Mc Ewen, PhD in plant physiology from Gothenburg University, is senior lecturer in biology and associate professor in science education at Karlstad University. She belongs to the SMEER (Science, Mathematics and Engineering Education Research) group. Her research focuses on teacher professional development, where she has studied teachers from primary to upper secondary school. Her greatest interest is to study how rapidly expanding knowledge in biology, especially epigenetics,  reaches teachers and their classes. She collaborates with researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University. The Swedish Research Council awarded the project “Epigenetic literacy and the implementation of epigenetics in school biology” 5 million SEK (2017-2019), in which she works together with Niklas Gericke (project leader) and Karin Thörne. Mc Ewen is main supervisor for one lic.stud. and has been vice-supervisor for one PhD student.

Birgitta Mc Ewen has a lot of experience in teaching biology at all levels. She has been a teacher in courses of cell biology, plant physiology, basic medicine as well as in other biological and biochemical fields, often as course leader or examiner. Many teacher students have participated in these courses. In the project work at advanced level (30 ECTS) she was supervisor for nine students. She was nominated as best teacher at Karlstad University in 1998.