Pooneh Sabouri serves as Associate Director of the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University. In her role, she partners with faculty, students, and institutional leaders to advance teaching practices and promote student success in their college experiences. For the past 6 years, she has been the program manager and one of the co-PIs of the STEP UP physics project, a national program with more than 1,800 high school teachers in its network, aiming at transforming physics classes to be more engaging and open to all students.
Prior to her time at FIU, she completed her Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning at New York University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Tandon School of Engineering. Her research centers on designing STEM curricula using a Vygotskian approach, characterizing teacher learning, and developing collaborative ways to expand teaching practices using cultural-historical theoretical frameworks.
Selected Publications
- Kirch, S. A., Sabouri, P., Zhang, M., & Naidoo, K. (2025). Learning about learning: A framework for co-authoring theory-practice tools for studying teaching-learning. In Cultivating Dialogue, Language, and Literacy for Social Justice in Teacher Education.
- Sabouri, P., Hazari, Z., Khatri, R., & Barnett Dreyfuss, B. (2022). Considerations for inclusive and equitable design: The case of STEP UP counternarratives in HS physics. The Physics Teacher, 60(9), 740–743. https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0056835