Dr. Terrell R. Morton was selected to receive the NARST 2024 Early Career Research Award (ECRA). This honor recognizes Dr. Terrell R. Morton’s professional accomplishments as the most significant among other researchers nominated for the ECRA this year.

Dr. Terrell R. Morton has made significant contributions to science education as a scholar-activist working to transform the positioning and understanding of Blackness in mainstream education, specifically STEM postsecondary education. Seeking justice and joy for Black women, Black students, and other racially minoritized individuals, his research and work focus on identity as it informs the decision-making and outcomes of racially minoritized students in STEM postsecondary education. He draws from critical race theory, phenomenology, and human development to ascertain Black students’ consciousness and how it manifests in their various embodiments and actions that facilitate their STEM postsecondary engagements. As a scholar-activist, Dr. Morton advocates for and theorizes structural and cultural change to the STEM education ecosystem.  He works to transform STEM learning environments through race critical, strengths-based approaches, envisioning spaces that are recognized and understood as extensions of students’ identity rather than sites of oppression that perpetuate hostility and exclusion.