Research

My postdoctoral research focus was developed during my postdoc at Rochester Institute of Technology working with the Professional Development for Emerging Education Researchers (PEER) Institute. This work focused on understanding the impacts of professional development (PD) in STEM education research methods & theory on faculty and investigating a supportive leadership style called groundskeeping. 

Traditional PD emphasizes skill and knowledge acquisition, but PEER workshops centered participants and building their sense of community to promote their fit in the STEM education research community. A set of interviews with 12 PEER workshop participants one or more years after their participation led to the development of a case study of one emerging physics education researcher. From this, I found:

• The community-centered PD approach contributed to participants' sense of community

• The multi-day format of PEER workshops allowed participants to build rapport with each other and build research partnerships

• Publication is a barrier that many emerging STEM education researchers feel they must navigate to be a part of the community

My doctoral research was in student content understanding of upper-division quantum mechanics, with the goal of helping students transition from discrete systems (like spin 1/2 particles) to continuous ones (like the particle in a box). My work investigated students' understanding of what it means to be discrete and continuous in quantum mechanics and looked at how students utilize computation to make sense of quantum mechanics. This work was qualitative in nature, utilizing semi-structured interviews, in-situ observations, and card sorting tasks. 

 Some main findings are summarized as follows:

• • Students face challenges in understanding quantum states as vectors

  • Computational quantum mechanics activities promote students to think about Riemann sums, which can help them build connections between inner products for discrete systems and inner products for continuous systems

  • Notation can heavily influence whether a student views something as discrete (e.g., Dirac notation, matrix notation) or continuous (functions of x). While this heuristic is sometimes productive, Dirac notation is commonly used for discrete and continuous bases. 

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2025). Student Understandings of Discrete and Continuous in Quantum Mechanics: A Thematic Analysis, Physical Review Physics education Research, in review.

Solorio, C. D., Sayre, E. C., and Franklin, S. V. (2024). Centering sense of community in professional development for emerging discipline-based education researchers. 2024 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings, Boston, MA.

Solorio, C. D., Patterson, K., Hass, C. A. F., Sayre, E. C., and Franklin, S. (2024). Groundskeeping to nurture emerging discipline-based education researchers. 2024 International Society of the Learning Sciences Proceedings, Buffalo, NY.

Solorio, C. D., and Gire, E. (2023). Conceptual challenges of discretizing wave functions: A case study. 2023 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings, Sacramento, CA.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2021). Interactive remote interviews during emergency remote teaching. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 17(2).

Amin, M. A., Braden, J., Copeland, E. J., Giblin, J. T., Solorio, C., Weiner, Z. J., and Zhou, S.-Y. (2018). Gravitational waves from asymmetric oscillon dynamics? Physical Review D, 98(2).

Jones M., Lanius, M., Scott-Stewart, E., Solorio, C.D., Franklin, S.V., Kustusch, M., Sayre, E.C. (2024). Professional Development for Emerging Education Researchers National Field School. Rochester, NY.

Solorio, C.D., Lo, S. (2024). Professional Development for Emerging Education Researchers. Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research East Conference, Rochester, NY.

Solorio, C.D. (2023). Computation in the Physics Classroom and Physics Curricula Poster Symposium and Discussion. Physics Education Research Conference, Sacramento, CA.

Solorio, C. D., Patterson, K., Hass, C. A. F., Sayre, E. C., and Franklin, S. V. (2024). Groundskeeping to nurture emerging discipline-based education researchers. International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Buffalo, NY.

Solorio, C. D., Patterson, K., Sayre, E. C., and Franklin, S. V. (2024). Emerging discipline-based education researchers' sense of community. American Physical Society April Meeting, Sacramento, CA.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2020). Transfer from discrete to continuous inner-products in a computational course. American Association of Physics Teachers Conference, Virtual.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2022). How students compare and contrast the discreteness of quantum representations. American Association of Physics Teachers Conference, Grand Rapids, MI.

Solorio, C. D., and Gire, E. (2023). Discrete and continuous connections: Reflective interview on a computational activity. American Association of Physics Teachers Conference, Sacramento, CA.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2021). Computation to support understanding of discrete and continuous quantum systems. American Association of Physics Teachers Conference, Virtual.

Solorio, C. D., Patterson, K., Hass, C. A. F., Sayre, E. C., and Franklin, S. V. (2024). Groundskeeping to nurture emerging discipline-based education researchers. International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Buffalo, NY.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2023). Quantum mechanics students’ understanding of “discrete” and “continuous”. Physics Education Research Conference, Sacramento, CA.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2022). Discrete and continuous challenges in quantum mechanics: A reflective interview. Oslo PER Summer Institute, Oslo, Norway.

Solorio, C. D., Gire, E., and Roundy, D. (2021). How students organize quantum concepts and representations: A card sorting task. Physics Education Research Conference, Virtual.

Solorio, C. D., and Roundy, D. (2021). Development and design of a computational physics lab course. American Association of Physics Teachers Conference, Virtual.

Solorio, C. (2023). Students' Understanding of Discrete and Continuous Systems in Quantum Mechanics and Computation's Supporting Role. : Oregon State University.