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Advances in mathematics education net Elise Lockwood the presidential award

By Hannah Ashton

Photos by Karl Maasdam

Elise Lockwood, a professor in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science, has been honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding early-career scientists and engineers.

Nearly 400 scientists and engineers received the PECASE from President Biden in January 2025. This award recognizes Lockwood’s innovative research in mathematics education and her potential to advance the field.

Lockwood’s research focuses on how college students learn mathematics, especially combinatorics, the branch of mathematics that focuses on counting objects and identifying patterns within defined parameters. Her work sheds light on how students approach and solve complex counting problems, offering insights that significantly enhance mathematics education.

“I’ve dedicated significant time and effort to carve out this space of trying to improve students’ combinatorial reasoning, and it means a lot that it’s being appreciated. I’m also very fortunate to have had wonderful colleagues and collaborators, as well as the support of the NSF, Oregon State and my students,” Lockwood said. “It’s an honor, and I feel very fortunate and blessed.”

She switched to a mathematics major late in her academic career, initially unaware that studying mathematics education was even an option. Her original plan was to attend graduate school and become a high school mathematics teacher. However, one class changed her trajectory.

“I took a combinatorics class and was fascinated by these problems that were easy to state but kind of difficult to solve. I had a bad experience with them as an undergrad, and I realized I could study ways to improve how these problems are taught and understood by students. That became my passion,” she said.

Unlike solving a calculus equation, which often seems like following a well-lit trail with a pre-existing path to reach an answer, combinatorics problems can feel like they are all unique. Lockwood has discovered that students want more structure, and she has accomplished this by helping them focus on the nature of what they are trying to count instead of focusing on applying a formula.

“Oregon State values STEM education and STEM education research.”

By focusing on how students conceptualize and reason through combinatorial problems, she has redefined traditional approaches to teaching this foundational area of mathematics. Her work integrates deep theoretical insights with practical applications, enabling educators to move beyond rote memorization and formulaic problem-solving to foster genuine mathematical understanding.

Her career path and numerous awards showcase her dedication to mathematics education. She joined Oregon State in 2013, partly because she was excited that “Oregon State values STEM education and STEM education research.”

Two women sit at a desk with a laptop.

Elise Lockwood (right) and Ph.D. student Rebeckah Kuss explore strategies for improving how students learn combinatorics in the Mathematics and Statistics Learning Center.

She is currently a co-editor in chief of the International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education. She is also an academic staff member of the Center for Computing in Science Education at the University of Oslo, Norway.

From 2021 to 2024, Lockwood served as a program officer at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Undergraduate Education, where she was involved in overseeing and managing NSF-funded projects aimed at improving undergraduate STEM education. This role further informed her research on effective teaching practices, and she influenced broader policies and practices in STEM education.

In 2019, she was part of a $141K, one-year grant from Google to enhance and increase integration between computer science education and mathematics teacher education curriculum. The project was aimed at better equipping teachers to teach computational concepts and practices in Oregon high schools.

In 2017, Lockwood received a $800K five-year NSF CAREER Award to study how computational tools and activities, specifically introductory Python programming, can aid students in solving complex combinatorial problems. Her published research on using basic Python programming for undergraduate combinatorics problem solving paves the way for novel and creative methods of using computing to support students’ mathematical reasoning.

In addition to her PECASE award, Lockwood has received the John and Annie Selden Prize for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, the Promising Scholar Award from Oregon State and a Fulbright award. Her work has already influenced the field of mathematics teaching and curriculum development, enabling students to gain a deeper, more intuitive grasp of combinatorial concepts — skills that are critical for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.