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Professor Carla C. Johnson Receives 2022 Outstanding Engagement Award, Alumni Outstanding Extension and Outreach Award

Carla C. Johnson, a professor of science education in the NC State College of Education, has been recognized for her outreach, extension and engagement work through two awards from NC State alumni and peers. 

Johnson was selected as the winner of 2022 Outstanding Engagement Award, which recognizes faculty and staff who are nominated by their colleagues, colleges or units at NC State for outstanding contributions to engagement. As an award winner, she will be inducted into NC State’s Academy of Outstanding Faculty in Extension and Engagement. 

“I am very pleased to be inducted into the Academy of Outstanding Faculty in Extension and Engagement,” Johnson said. “This honor is a reflection of the collective efforts of several other faculty and staff at NC State and other institutions that I have had the pleasure of working with. I believe our investment into K-12 schools and workforce development opportunities are key to growing STEM-literate talent in the U.S.”

In addition, Johnson was also selected by the NC State Alumni Association as the recipient of this year’s Alumni Outstanding Extension and Outreach Award, for which she will receive a $4,000 prize. 

“I am so honored that NC State’s Alumni Association selected me as their recipient for this year’s award,” she said. “There have been so many well-deserving faculty who have received this distinction in the past, and I am humbled to be in great company with other NC State people who are doing amazing work in extension and outreach.”

The two awards recognize Johnson’s most recent work leading the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy – a nationally registered apprenticeship program funded by a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor that is designed to train individuals to assume roles within the area of artificial intelligence – as well as her Institute of Education-funded Best Practice in K-12 Online Teaching project, which supported thousands of K-12 teachers during this pandemic-era to transition to online delivery of instruction.

These recent projects, Johnson said, are part of her longtime commitment to outreach and engagement that have been at the core of her work since she began her career in higher education two decades ago.

​​”I am incredibly passionate about supporting educators, students and programming which takes steps to make equitable access to STEM education for all students a reality,” she said. “My role in this has been to secure funding to implement programs, conduct research and develop resources to support STEM education across the lifespan.”