Claire Wladis

Claire Wladis is a professor of mathematics at the Borough of Manhattan Community College at the City University of New York and of urban education at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She conducts research in higher education and mathematics education. In higher education, she is interested in better describing how environmental factors such as work and family commitments, time poverty or time capital, and health conditions relate to student outcomes in higher education. This includes considering how colleges and educational institutions as a whole could better adapt to the students who are currently enrolled. In math education, she focuses on better understanding how students gain conceptual understanding in algebra and other symbolic representations of mathematics, including better describing "nonstandard" but valid forms of current student thinking, better assessing students' conceptual understanding, and better describing which conceptions are critical to algebra and other areas. The aim of this research is to generate teaching materials, approaches, and assessments that provide all students access to rich mathematical learning experiences, as well as the skills needed to obtain college degrees in STEM fields. She currently leads the Equity through Education Research Group and is the lead principal investigator on four NSF research grants: One focused on creating and validating the algebra concept inventory, another focused on assessing the extent to which availability of online courses provides better access to STEM degrees, a third that investigates which factors are critical to the success of math majors at community colleges, and a fourth that focuses on how to best support STEM majors with health conditions or disabilities.