Professor Brianne Gutmann

Professor Brianne Gutmann (she/they) grew up near Chicago in a small, supportive, working-class family. She became interested in physics after noticing the exciting ways that science could predict and explain things in the world around her, and was always interested in teaching. She was inspired by the care that her own teachers had shown her, and hoped to emulate that care forward. 

Professor Gutmann was the first in their family to go to college, and received the Pell Grant as well as substantial financial aid from their undergraduate institution. They attended Carleton College, a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, as a physics major with the intention of teaching high school physics after graduation. However, she was unable to get a teaching job and moved back home to stay with family and work part time for a few years. At some point, her professors from her undergraduate degree reached out and supported her in applying for graduate school– their support was invaluable for navigating the confusing process.  She successfully attended graduate school at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned a physics Ph.D. with a focus on physics education research, combining her two interests. Their dissertation focused on adaptive online homework, especially intended to support students transitioning from high school to college physics. 

After graduating, she also completed a postdoctoral research job at Texas State University, where she became interested in the overlap of science, policy, and ethics in physics classrooms. This led her to a science policy fellowship, where she worked near DC for the National Science Foundation’s Hispanic-Serving Institution Program. She began teaching at SJSU in Fall of 2022, and continues to research how to better support students and instructors to discuss ethics and societal implications of physics in their classrooms.