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 many "external" factors such as work and family commitments, time poverty or time capital, and health challenges relate to student outcomes in higher education and contribute to inequities in society which could be addressed by changes to existing policies and practices. 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 developing conceptual understanding in algebra, with the aim of generating curricula, teaching approaches, and assessments which better serve the needs of all students and provide all students access to rich mathematical experiences and STEM degrees. She currently leads the Equity through Education Research Group and is the lead principal investigator on two NSF research grants: One focused on creating and validating the elementary algebra concept inventory, and another focused on assessing the extent to which availability of online courses provides better access to STEM degrees.