Prof. Dr. Devrim Akgündüz

Director of the STEM Education Research Center at Istanbul Aydın University

He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Gazi University and his doctorate in Science Education at Marmara University. He has served as a teacher, project coordinator, consultant, expert, lecturer, and faculty member at various levels within the Ministry of National Education and universities. He has provided conferences, seminars, and in-service training to tens of thousands of teachers, administrators, and students on STEM education, project preparation techniques and management, blended learning and social media, educational technologies, technology integration, international assessment exams, and innovation in education. He attended 50 meetings in 10 states and 32 cities in the US at the invitation of the US State Department as part of the IVLP (2009) and the STEM project (2014), of which he was the leader. He has held meetings at science centers, museums, think tanks, ministries, universities, educational institutions, schools, libraries, local governments, and institutes throughout the US. In 2006, he founded Türkiye's first project website, Proje Okul (www.projeokulu.com), the first organization in Türkiye related to STEM education, STEM School (stemokulu.com), the Turkish STEM Education Association (www.stemtr.org) and Türkiye's first STEM laboratory. He edited and wrote the STEM Education Turkey Report and the STEM Education Workshop Report, which are the first reports on STEM education in Türkiye. He has published articles, books and conference proceedings on STEM education, science education, blended learning, technology integration, educational robotics, PISA and the use of social media in education. He has taken part in many national and international projects. Dr. Akgündüz currently continues to serve as a faculty member in the Department of Classroom Education at IAU Faculty of Education and as the Director of the STEM Education Application and Research Center. In addition; STEM School is the director of the STEM Lab and the STEM Teacher Certificate Program, which aims to train STEM teachers, and organizes the World STEM Education Conference (www.worldstemed.org) and the World STEM Festival (www.worldstemfest.com).