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Mission and Vision

Our Mission

MISSION

Jhumki Basu Foundation fosters STEM teaching mastery in teachers, and through them empowers youth around the world in STEM-related subjects

Exceptional STEM educators, who view teaching in under-served communities as a rewarding career, are key levers for the development of skills in students that are critical for them to become part of a modern workforce and responsible citizens.

VISION


Who We Are

Founded in 2009, JBF is proud of its dedicated team of STEM teachers who have worked in classrooms across the world. Our backgrounds include serving as teacher leaders, as department chairs and as coaches.
 

Our Team
Our Story

Our Board Members

Our Story

A treasured member of our faculty, Jhumki touched countless lives and left an indelible mark on our students and our school. She was a brilliant researcher and educator who, in her all too brief career, achieved great success in advancing the state of Science Education. Her death is a great loss for the field and for all of us who were with her."

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Prof Mary Brabeck 

Dean, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development

New York University

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Jhumki Basu Foundation 

The objective of Jhumki Basu Foundation is to discover, nurture and spread  innovative and sustainable programs to carry on Prof. Jhumki Basu’s vision of democratizing science education.

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JBF raises funds, makes grants, executes projects, manages awards, scholarships, science fairs, competitions and other programs in  science education. JBF is a registered nonprofit corporation with section 501(c)3 tax-exemption status from the Internal Revenue Service.

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JBF is sponsor of the STEM Ed Innovators program and the S. Jhumki Basu STEM Education and Research Center at New York University.

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Who is Jhumki?

Prof Shreyashi Jhumki Basu attended Stanford University where she received a B.A. in Human Biology in 1998. In 2006, she earned a doctorate in Science Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  Later that year she joined NYU's Steinhardt School of Education as an associate professor. Between 2003 and 2006, Jhumki served as co-founder, assistant principal and science department chair at the NYCDoE School for Democracy and Leadership in Brooklyn, New York.  She received an Early Career Award from Columbia University, the Distinguished Alumni Award  from Castilleja School, and the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association.

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Jhumki passed away in 2008 at age 31, after a seven-year battle with cancer.

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Mission to Teach is the inspirational story about Prof Jhumki Basu who took on American science education reform against deeply-established practices, suffering along the way several tragedies that only spurred her on to astonishing achievements in her all-too-short lifetime. Incredibly, Jhumki realized her achievements as she battled breast cancer for seven years before it engulfed her at age 31 but could not stop her legacy. 

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This book, anchored by Prof Basu, provides a framework for democratic science teaching to interrogate the purposes and goals of science education in classrooms globally. It shows teachers and students can act as powerful participants in their own learning, and as change-agents of a larger global society. Three core conceptual tools for democratic science teaching are provided. These are Student Voice, Shared Authority, and Critical Science Literacy.

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