Research Portfolio

I study why students leave STEM — and I build the courses that make them stay.

I'm Henry Fan, a McNair Scholar at San José State University, Research Lead at the Foothill College Science Learning Institute, and a CS instructor at two California community colleges. My research sits at the intersection of CS education, learning analytics, and structural equity. My teaching practice is the laboratory where that research comes to life.

The connecting thread across both: structural equity — the idea, grounded in Seymour and Hunter's landmark work, that students leave STEM not because they can't do the work but because the structures around them weren't designed with them in mind. I study those structures through interview research, NLP analysis, and learning analytics. I change those structures through first-principles, hands-on curriculum designed for the students community colleges actually serve.

Before this research, I spent years working across student services at Foothill College — financial aid, counseling, tutoring, learning communities — watching the same students encounter the same invisible barriers from every vantage point the institution offers. That experience is the origin of everything on this site.

I'm applying to PhD programs in CS education and learning sciences for Fall 2026.

SJSU McNair Scholar Foothill College SLI henry@henryfan.org

Two Practices, One Question

Most applicants separate research from teaching. I don't, because in my work they're the same activity: every course I design is a structural intervention, and every structural intervention is a research site. The question driving both sides is identical: what features of course design predict whether students seek help, persist, and develop belonging?

The Research

Four research questions organized around a single claim: structural features of introductory CS courses — not student ability — predict who seeks help, who persists, and who leaves. Methods: qualitative interviews (Seymour & Hunter replication), NLP analysis of course materials, learning analytics on LMS data, and computational tool-building for instructional auditing.

Read the full research agenda →

See the five empirical projects →

The Teaching

A six-course curriculum framework for community college CS built on three principles: derive before compute, build before import, equity as design. Grounded in constructionism (Papert), productive failure (Kapur), self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan), and Jeff Anderson's antiracist learning science. Includes a signature project where students build a working 8-bit computer on breadboards — encountering physics, linear algebra, and chemistry along the way.

Read about the teaching practice →

See the full curriculum site →

Active Projects

Qualitative Research · Interview Study · Proposed

P3 · Why They Left: A Seymour & Hunter Replication at Community Colleges

Do the structural departure reasons documented at research universities replicate at community colleges? 20–30 semi-structured interviews with students who left STEM at Foothill. IRB protocol in preparation. This project produces the conceptual foundation the other four projects need.

NLP · Instructional Design · In Progress

P2 · SyllabusAudit: NLP-Based Structural Analysis of CS Course Materials

Can automated analysis of syllabi identify structural features associated with poor student outcomes? Corpus of 47/100+ syllabi collected. Annotation schema drafted. Targeting Learning @ Scale 2027.

Curriculum Design · Constructionism · Completed

Build a Computer from Scratch: A 20-Week Cross-STEM Signature Project

Teams of community college students build a working 8-bit breadboard computer from logic gates. Seven learning science principles. Explicit STEM bridges to five disciplines. Three-track agency system. Portfolio assessment with student-proposed grades. Grounded in Papert, Kapur, Kolb, Perkins & Salomon, and Jeff Anderson's antiracist learning science. This is the curriculum that the research aims to study.

See all five research projects →

Writing

Research Statement · March 2026

Structural Predictors of Help-Seeking and Departure in Introductory CS

Four research questions, theoretical grounding, methodological approach, and why this work requires doctoral training.

Read the research statement (PDF) →

Teaching Philosophy · March 2026

Derive Before Compute: A Teaching Philosophy for Introductory CS at Community Colleges

Constructionism, productive failure, self-determination theory, and antiracist learning science — enacted through a three-track system, portfolio assessment, and hands-on construction.

Read the teaching philosophy (PDF) →

Full reading list with 30+ annotated entries →

Applied Work

Research-informed designs for tools and platforms that operationalize the same structural equity principles that guide the research.

ProjectBridge
A project-based learning platform for community colleges — project directory, collaborator marketplace, build journals, milestone tracking, and faculty dashboards. Designed for first-generation students. Built with Next.js, Supabase, and Tailwind. Learn more →
Prototype Tools
Three proof-of-concept implementations: a curriculum dependency visualizer (graph theory), a pedagogical debt analyzer (NLP), and a minimum viable curriculum algorithm. See prototypes →
Teaching Computing Differently
A six-course curriculum framework for community college CS. Twelve course pages. A 20-week signature project. Open-access, no required textbooks. Visit the site →
Open Source
All papers, tools, annotation schemas, and curriculum materials released open-source. GitHub →