Dr. Kariluz Dávila Díaz
Chemistry Graduate and Undergraduate Assistant Professor
e-mail: kariluz@gmail.com
Office: CN-327
Research Interests
-Chemical Education
-Analytical Chemistry
Research
Kariluz Dávila is an Assistant Professor of UPR-RP. She received her BS in 2000 and Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Puerto Rico. In 2007 she had a postdoctoral experience in chemical education at the University of Arizona. Her research in Arizona involved developing digital didactic e-based materials using the computer-based Flash program. She also worked on projects to understand student learning, including the study of alternative conceptions and the classification of the difficulty level of end-of-chapter exercises of several chemistry books. She currently develops digital didactic materials for improving the learning of difficult concepts in general chemistry. Recently, she published her work about transforming the General Chemistry course to a virtual course, catalyzed by the necessity due to the pandemic (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00111) and using integrative activities as review techniques for General Chemistry concepts (https://doi.org/10.47378/2835-6764/AJSER-120). Trying to keep up with this generation of students, who are more technological, she is currently applying different techniques for tutoring that include Piazza, a web-based system that allows close communication between students and professors. This system allows students and professors to post anonymous questions, comments, or answers anytime. Dr. Dávila has received excellent evaluations for her work in the Department of Chemistry since 2006. She has worked as a coordinator of mentors with the Program Pre-MARC since 2006 but has also served as a mentor since 2000 as a graduate student to first-year undergraduate students. Dr. Dávila was the coordinator of projects that impacted students and teachers of the Puerto Rico Department of Education such as “UPR Estudia contigo” and the STEM Academy. Dr. Dávila also offers workshops for teachers and students of public and private schools on “Fun Chemistry”. Since 2022 she has also worked to offer chemistry immersion summer workshops to high school students through the “University of Puerto Rico SEPA STEM Asthma Awareness Program” as part of the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is also the Associate Director of “NASA Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium” which helps the development of science and technology in Puerto Rico. She has vast experience with online education and a great domain of software that facilitates the statistical analysis of data collected for teaching and learning processes.
Publications
Dávila-Díaz, K. “Using Integrative Activities to Reinforce Stoichiometry, Solutions, and Aqueous Reactions Concepts as a Review Technique for Exams”. American Journal of Science Education Research. 2023. https://doi.org/10.47378/2835-6764/AJSER-120
Díaz-Vázquez, L.M., Dávila-Díaz, K., Ortiz-Andrade, B.M., Alfonso-Cano, D.J., Zuluaga- Gómez, C.C., 2023 “Constelación de Latinas”, Publicaciones Puertorriqueñas, Inc. San Juan, PR ISBN: 978-1-62537-661-9
K. Davila. “From an Emergency Pandemic Course to an Online Course: A General Chemistry case study in a Resource-constrained Hispanic Serving Institution”. Journal of Chemical Education. 2022, 99, 2913−2918, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00111
K. Dávila, L. Muñoz, L. Díaz, U. Rivera, M. Torres, C. Malca, R. Mahomedova, 2022 “Manual Química Divertida para Maestros de Octavo Grado”, Publicaciones Puertorriqueñas, Inc. San Juan, PR. ISBN: 978-1-62537-622-0
K. Dávila, “Incluyendo la tecnología en el salón de clase para facilitar la integración de las actividades de GK12”, El Sol, 1, 26-28 (2015).
Dávila, K.; Talanquer, V. Classifying End-of-Chapter Questions and Problems for Selected General Chemistry Textbooks Used in the United States. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87 (1), 97–101. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed8000232
Curriculum Vitae