Susannah Sandrin

Susannah K. Sandrin is clinical professor of environmental science in the New College School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University. She received her doctorate in soil, water and environmental science from the University of Arizona in 2001, after earning her master's degree in hydrology from the same university in 1998. Sandrin was awarded a bachelor's degree in biochemical engineering in 1996 from Rutgers University. She received her full-time faculty appointment at ASU in 2009.

Prior to coming to ASU's West campus, Sandrin served as the coordinator of the UW-Oshkosh Science Outreach Office and director of the University of Wisconsin System Women and Science Program. She served in those two capacities through 2008. Additionally, she was a lecturer in the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chemistry Department from 2002 to 2003. While at UW-Oshkosh, she received significant grant funding to offer multiple science education programs for in-service elementary teachers, and special programs for girls and other underrepresented populations in science. For example, she received a Special Initiatives Grant from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium to create a program for rural-district middle school girls' participation in space-related activities called "Astronomy is for Girls, Too!"

Sandrin's scholarly interests in science education have formed the foundation for publications such as those in Education Sciences (2024), Community College Journal of Research and Practice (2024), Journal of Latinos and Education (2019) and Journal of Research in Childhood Education (2016), and for presentations at conferences sponsored by organizations such as the American Educational Research Association (2020), National Association for Research on Science Teaching (2021, 2011 & 2009), Society for Research on Child Development (2015 and 2016 sponsored presentation at the Coalition for National Science Funding event in Washington, D.C.), Association for Science Teacher Education (2014 and 2016), American Psychological Association (2016), American Society for Engineering Education (2007), multiple National Science Foundation conferences and more.

Among the publications in which her earth science research has been featured are Ground Water, a leading technical publication for hydrogeologists; the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology; and Water Resources Research.

Her current research interests are in science education and environmental education. She has worked on four projects, as PI or co-I, sponsored by the National Science Foundation during her time at ASU. Her first project examined how gender (parent and child), ethnicity, family socio-economic status and more influenced how children develop their interests in and attitudes about science. She was in charge of generation of knowledge on two other scholarship programs. The first funded field and study abroad experiences for low-income students, and the second was a large, collaborative S-STEM project between ASU and three Maricopa Community College campuses, to increase transfer rates of low-income students into STEM fields (called Train 1.0).  She is the PI for the TraIN 2.0 S-STEM NSF-sponsored scholarship project which builds on the partnerships from the TraIN 1.0 project. Finally, she is interested in developing optimal strategies for demystifying science concepts for non-science majors, especially topics with an environmental focus.

Sandrin has also taught multiple classes in elementary science education for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

At ASU's West campus, Sandrin serves as the program lead for the Environmental Justice concentrations, and she regularly teaches Water Planet, Introduction to Justice in the Environment and Introduction to Environmental Science. She has developed the latter into a Universal Learner Course and a Continuing Education course to reach audiences beyond ASU.