NSF-GRFP Recipient

Our graduate student, Lily Roth (PhD, Interdisciplinary Studies), was awarded the 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Award (NSF-GRFP)—a highly competitive award that provides three years of financial and tuition support. The NSF-GRFP is a prestigious fellowship that recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in STEM fields. Fellows are selected based on demonstrated intellectual merit and the potential to make meaningful contributions to STEM research, education, and innovation.

Roth’s project will investigate how pre-service teachers’ data literacy, data science competencies, and motivational attitudes evolve through sustained engagement in a carefully designed data science instructional unit. Grounded in current data science, mathematics, and statistics standards, Roth will design and implement a research-based unit with approximately 190 elementary pre-service elementary teachers at USU. By capturing the interplay between cognitive and affective factors, Roth’s project aims to generate evidence-based insights into how pre-service teachers engage with data science in meaningful ways. These findings will inform the creation of effective teacher education programs and contribute to building capacity for the integration of data science within K–12 mathematics and statistics education.