Lynne Zummo

Lynne Zummo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah, where she has been since 2020. She also serves as the Curator of Learning Sciences at the Natural History Museum of Utah, integrating research on climate change education and informal learning environments.

• Education: PhD (2020), MA (2015) from Stanford University; MS (2010) from Dartmouth College; BA (2006) from Middlebury College.

Her research focuses on learning about contentious science issues (e.g., climate change) across formal and informal settings. Key areas include:

• Emotional and cognitive responses to climate change education
• Youth engagement in digital civic media and quantitative literacies
• Design of hopeful climate exhibits in museums
• Equitable STEM teacher training and curriculum development

Recent publications analyze:

• 2025: Daily wellbeing impacts of climate stressors; youth use of numbers in civic media; emotional regulation strategies in museums
• 2024: Culturally grounded case design for teachers; shifting from climate literacy to climate agency
• 2023: Science-civic practices in digital media; epistemic tool use in teacher training

She has received the Early Career Research Award (2024) and leads grants from the National Science Foundation and Spencer Foundation to develop equitable STEM instruction and climate education frameworks.

Lynne teaches preservice secondary science teachers and courses in 3D science instruction and graduate thesis supervision. Her work emphasizes science-embedded civic engagement, informal learning, and teacher expertise development through video annotation and collaborative discourse analysis.