Lyniesha Ward, Ph.D., is the newest Assistant Professor at Indiana University Indianapolis in Indiana. Her academic journey began with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with double minors in Education and Anthropology from the University of Richmond in Virginia. As an undergraduate student, she did computational research with the late Samuel Abrash, PhD studying reactions of phenylacetylene cations with HCN and (HCN)2. Coincidentally, she received her first research award, the COMP Division Undergraduate Research Poster Award here in Indianapolis at the 246th ACS National Meeting.
After graduation, Lyniesha spent time as a high school chemistry, physics, and biology teacher at the former Amandla Charter School in Chicago, IL. She later pursued her doctoral degree in Chemistry at North Carolina State University, where her research focused on developing and evaluating instructional resources to support the teaching of spectroscopy concepts in organic chemistry. Subsequently, Lyniesha pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she managed a variety of research projects including the development of an assessment instrument to measure student organic chemistry representational competence and an evaluation of the climate around teaching within the department. Outside of research, she served on the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee and worked with the organic chemistry faculty to create shared learning objectives for which they could align their instruction.
At present, Lyniesha will be expanding our graduate program to include chemistry education courses and research. The Ward Team’s research endeavors currently span two directions. The first explores the use of technology to improve the availability, adoption, accessibility, and assessment of chemistry knowledge. This includes augmented reality and YouTube platforms. The second direction seeks to strengthen science curricula by developing interdisciplinary instructional units that utilize sociocultural and critical-philosophical approaches to teach the concepts of energy and stability. Outside of IUI, Lyniesha is a member of the ACS Division of Chemical Education and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Chemists and Chemical Engineers. Lyniesha looks forward to working with faculty and students in the Department and beyond.