Leslie Berntsen, Ph.D.

Founder and Principal

Leslie is a social scientist, science communicator + educator, and faculty developer based in Los Angeles.

Prior to founding stemEDify, she was a teaching-focused faculty member at the University of Southern California, where she taught social justice- and science communication-focused psychology courses to nearly 4,000 students. Most recently, she served as the inaugural Director of Education and Research at The Story Collider, a non-profit organization dedicated to highlighting the human side of science through the art of personal storytelling.

Leslie’s teaching has been nationally recognized with four awards from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and the Society for the Psychological Study for Social Issues and her writing has been published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Science Magazine, and The Huffington Post.

**Personal Website | Academic CV | Twitter**

Critical Acclaim

“Standing ovation. An amazing and amazingly USEFUL set of tools to level up our teaching.”

-Faculty, University of California Davis

“Absolutely brilliant as a teacher of teachers.”

—Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Southern California

“Run and snap her up for your department’s seminar series.”

—Postdoctoral Scholar, Harvard University

“I want to have secure enough employment to talk like her, damn.”

-Ph.D. Student, Princeton University