Heading to Zurich: IARU Early-Career Collaboration Award

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© 2025 Magdalena Kersting

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been awarded an Early-Career Collaboration Award from the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) to conduct collaborative research at ETH Zurich next year 🎓

The award will fund a research visit to work with Dr. Charlotte Müller at the Professorship for Learning and Instruction. Our collaboration builds on exciting discussions that began during the "Bodies in Science" panel at Collegium Helveticum in March 2025, where we identified opportunities to advance our understanding of embodied cognition in science education.

The project asks: what actually works in embodied science education, and why? Together with colleagues at ETH and UCPH, we'll be conducting a systematic analysis of evidence-based instructional design principles for embodied learning activities. We'll be examining not just whether embodied approaches work, but diving deeper into what specific outcomes are measured and how they're assessed across different STEM disciplines.

The interdisciplinary research environment at ETH, with multiple chairs interested in embodied cognition, provides the perfect context for this work. The collaboration also connects beautifully with our SENSES network here in Copenhagen, potentially opening doors for future exchanges and joint funding applications.