Jade Fostvedt

Teaching Assistant Professor

Not Accepting Doctoral Students

Chemistry Education; Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry

I am trained as a molecular inorganic chemist, specializing in the design of reactive organometallic complexes. To this end, I employed air-free synthetic techniques to isolate metal complexes and subsequently investigate their reactivity. My graduate research aimed to explore novel complexes containing early transition metal centers (namely Nb and Ta), with the goal of using these complexes to carry out difficult chemical transformations of abundant diatomic molecules, such as H₂, N₂, and CO. My research provided me with a fascinating molecular playground in which I could see the concepts I learned in the classroom come to life. In my current role as a teaching professor, I aim to help students develop their own passions through chemistry.

Chemistry has a reputation among students as being a particularly challenging subject to learn. However, a dedicated and innovative teacher has the power to change this narrative, transforming the chemistry classroom into a space for curiosity, joy, and community. My teaching philosophy is simple: everyone in the classroom, including the teacher, is a co-constructor of knowledge. My main goals for student learning are to: 1) guide students in developing a rich, connected, and relevant understanding of chemistry; and 2) move students toward higher levels of thinking, so that they may skeptically and skillfully evaluate observations, claims, and data. Furthermore, I aim to maximize retention, degree completion, and career opportunities for undergraduate chemists by using evidence-based practices to minimize disparity in equity and opportunities among diverse groups. I work toward this goal by departing from traditional lecture-based methods of teaching, validating student science identities, creating a supportive classroom community, and offering flexible opportunities for demonstrating content mastery.

B.S. Chemistry, Goldwater Scholar, University of South Dakota, 2017; Ph.D. Synthetic Chemistry, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 2022; Teaching Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2022-present.