American Institutes for Research

A former high school STEM teacher and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Joseph P. Wilson (pronouns: he/him/his) is a principal education consultant at AIR, where he is focused on ensuring all students have equitable access to rigorous STEM and computer science (CS) education and acts as a national thought leader in STEM & CS education through panels, speaking engagements, funding review panels, and advisory boards. He has extensive experience with strategic partnerships, community building, broadening participation, and day-to-day operations by leading both Teach For America’s STEM Initiative (reaching more than 3,500 STEM teachers across 53 placement sites in 37 states and DC) and Tata Consultancy Service’s goIT Computer Science education outreach program (reaching 4400 students and engaging 1,000 corporate volunteers across 45 cities in the US and Canada). He is an expert in developing, coordinating, and executing implementation across multi-site locations with numerous stakeholders.

Dr. Wilson is the co-lead for AIR’s computer science education efforts and works at the intersection of research and practice for PK-12 STEM and CS education. He is a project director, principal investigator, or co-principal investigator for more than six distinct federally-funded projects including Integrating Indian Education for All and Computer Science for All in Wyoming Elementary Schools (a researcher practitioner partnership with the Wyoming Department of Education, BootUp PD, and schools districts within the Wind River Reservation that focuses on developing and implementing two curricular units that integrate CS education and Indian Education for All standards for elementary teachers and students); CS for All Teachers (a virtual community for more than 6500 PK-12 teachers of computer science); CT4EDU (a researcher practitioner partnership with Michigan State University and Oakland Schools that focuses on integrating computational thinking into elementary classrooms); Defense STEM Education Consortium [DSEC] (evaluating a department of Defense-funded consortium of STEM education outreach partners across the United State); Exploring Computer Science Fellows 2.0 (a researcher practitioner partnership with Teach For America that focuses on recruiting and supporting teachers of color to teach computer science at the high school level); and Empowering K-5 Teachers in Southern Oregon through Computational Thinking (a research practitioner partnership with Southern Oregon University and local schools districts focused on integrating computational thinking into the K-5 instruction of general elementary and elementary bilingual teachers).