Christine Bernhardt

UC Santa Barbara
PhD Student
hirst@ucsb.edu

Christine Hirst Bernhardt is a veteran STEM educator in K12 and collegiate arenas. Christine holds dual master’s degrees in science education and astronomy. She is passionate about bringing space content to the masses. Christine has nearly a decade of curriculum development and professional leadership experience, and is actively involved in science education efforts at regional and National levels, such as serving on the National Aerospace Advisory board. Christine regularly leads professional development workshops and symposiums for science teachers throughout California, and is passionate about supporting teachers. Christine has worked for several of the nation’s leading curricular companies as a subject matter expert, and is currently aligning and sequencing all curricula for the second largest district in the Nation as a contractor with NASA’s Infiniscope project. Christine is the sole author of two innovative, experiment-based astronomy courses published for the California Department of Education. She flew on NASA’s SOFIA mission in 2017, traveled to Chile as an education ambassador in 2019 and founded a space camp in Hong Kong. Additionally, she regularly leads outreach events as a NASA Solar System Ambassador and Space Foundation Liaison. She is currently a PhD student at UC Santa Barbara in STEM Education with an emphasis in Astronomy Education. Her interests are the utilization of space experiences to facilitate social justice and social emotional learning.