November 2025: Spencer Perry

About Spencer

I enrolled in high school physics out of equal parts encouragement from my father and a "why not" approach to scheduling my junior year of high school. I didn't really know what physics was, let alone how impactful Mr. Carmichael's class would be on my life. A few years later, I was a sophomore at BYU feeling unfulfilled with my mechanical engineering studies and grappling with alternatives. Once more, my father's advice helped me find my way when he asked me, "What do you find yourself thinking about when you don't have to think about anything?" It turned out I thought a lot about earlier teaching experiences (I was a serial summer camp counselor) and Mr. Charmichael's physics class. I stopped by Duane Merrell's office the next day to ask about teaching physics and found myself hooked on the idea almost immediately.

I learned about AAPT in 2011 from one of my introductory physics classes taught by Dr. Ross Spencer. A note about the upcoming Idaho/Utah section meeting was part of his start-of-class announcements. After class, I approached him with my interest in attending, but I had some concerns. "When I go to the department colloquium each week, I barely understand anything. Will I be able to understand anything at the conference?" I asked. He replied by saying, "I don't understand most of what's said at colloquium either." Dr. Spencer helped me understand that I am good enough for AAPT. I went to the section meeting and became involved enough to start presenting at my section meetings by the next year.

Since that fateful day in introductory mechanics, AAPT has impacted my life in more ways than I can count or describe. As a classroom physics teacher, I was exposed to the idea that I could systematically improve my own teaching and my students' learning as part of an empirical affair. When I started working in physics teacher preparation in 2018, I was able to collaborate with some of the best physics teachers that I could hope to find anywhere and learn from them to better help my students-so they could go help their own students. My interactions with members of the AAPT community have helped keep me grounded in a complex world of science education research and have led to some of my closest friendships in the world.

I am also in the final stretches of my PhD studies in Science Education at Indiana University. My dissertation focuses on factors related to physics teacher career retention. Or, phrased as a question: What gives them the capacity to stay in the teaching profession when times get difficult and they have thoughts about leaving? Most research on this topic focuses on why teachers leave the profession, but researchers do not often ask why teachers stay. The implication is that if we can better understand why teachers stay in their careers, we can better leverage those reasons as assets for retaining our best teachers of physics. Besides working in physics teacher education, I also work as a researcher in the Office of P12 Engagement in the School of Education at Indiana University-Bloomington. My major project right now is the Educating for Environmental Change program-a teacher professional development program dedicated to teaching the causes, impacts, and (most importantly) reasons for hope in the face of environmental challenges.

I enjoy teaching and research in physics, but if you ask me about my research and then ask me about my daughter, my enthusiasm for my family will reveal which of the two takes top priority in my life.