My research specialty is in the subfield of physics education research. These are some areas of active research for me:

• How students use their prior knowledge while learning new physics concepts
• Why women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in physics
• The development of new kinesthetic learning activities to help students learn physics ideas
• The effect of Learning Assistants in a physics program

Curriculum Vitae

Recent publications:

* indicates a TCNJ undergraduate student author

AJ Richards. Teaching mechanics using kinesthetic learning activities. The Physics Teacher, 57(1), p. 35-38, (2019).

AJ Richards, D. C. Jones, & E. Etkina. How students combine resources to make conceptual breakthroughs. Research in Science Education, p. 1-23, (2018).

C. Horna* & AJ Richards. Investigating physics self-belief of female African-American students. The Physics Teacher, 56(7), p. 448-451, (2018).

M. E. Bellino, AJ Richards, M. Chessler, L. Madden, & N. Magee. “Recruiting Future Physics Teachers Through a Field-based Summer Enrichment Program.” In Opportunities and Challenges in Teacher Recruitment and Retention. C. Rinke & L. Mawhinney (Eds). IAP (in press).  **Preprint**

B. Santangelo* & AJ Richards. Characterizing teacher-asked questions in a high school physics classroom. PERC 2016 Proceedings, p. 300-303, (2016).