July 2025: Jennifer Ito

About Jennifer

I remember taking physics in high school and thinking it was the coolest thing. I loved how physics made me think of the world in a different way, and it was also challenging, which made it fun and interesting for me. I think it also helped that my dad had a physics degree and my mom had an engineering degree, so I was fortunate to be raised in a STEM household. However, what steered me towards physics education was actually two professors from my community college. One professor was my calculus professor, David Lowenkron. It seemed like he could explain the most fundamental and complex topics to anyone. I remember the feeling of revelation and deep understanding as he was explaining derivatives at the basic conceptual level. It was amazing, and he cared about his students’ learning. I spent hours in his office or after class asking him questions, as did other students, and he never seemed to grow tired of us. He genuinely wanted to help us learn. The second professor was my physics professor, Takashi Nakajima. His physics classes were notoriously difficult, but if you survived his class, you knew your fundamental physics principles. Professor Nakajima would keep open office hours and would always be available in his office or the physics lab room to answer any questions. He deeply cared about his students and deeply cared that they learned physics well. He also believed in me and my abilities to instruct before I had even done so. He volunteered me to be a supplemental instruction leader, which meant that I held tutoring sessions for my peers taking the physics classes. He also had me substitute teach for him once while he was away. These experiences planted the seed and desire to pursue physics education as a career, and I am extremely grateful to both of these teachers and mentors who demonstrated the care, passion, and faithfulness that make a great professor.

Now, as a junior full-time faculty member at a small liberal arts college, I am fortunate that my job is to teach physics. I strive to instruct my students with the same clarity that I’ve received from great teachers, but I also desire to continue to develop ways to make physics more accessible and meaningful to my students. Most of the students I teach are not physics majors, so convincing them that physics is interesting can be difficult at times. My passion is to demonstrate to my students that physics is an interesting subject and to help them build confidence in themselves, enabling them to succeed in these classes. I enjoy coming up with different methods to explain concepts using an approach that is meaningful to them. It can be challenging, but there is always a way. I love developing curriculum that resonates with a variety of students and finding or creating demonstrations that are exciting and eye-opening. I get excited about researching ways to incorporate current best practices in the classroom, given the constraints that I have, such as classroom type and size. Most importantly, though, I desire to cultivate a space that makes my students feel cared for, seen, and encouraged through their journey of studying physics. My hope is to create a safe space that allows students to learn at their highest potential.

Part of enacting my vision for my teaching career has been made possible through AAPT and the resources they provide. What I’ve appreciated most about AAPT is the access to a broad community of individuals whose passion is teaching. I still remember the feeling of my first AAPT summer meeting last year. The amount of incredibly diverse information that was shared was overwhelming, and yet, I felt energized, excited, and curious as I bounced from talk to talk. I felt like I belonged. I had finally found my people. So now I am eager to continue being a part of and contributing to this community, I hope, for many years to come.