{"id":38487,"date":"2018-07-18T16:17:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T20:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?post_type=profile&p=38487"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:46:42","slug":"thomas-mckenna","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/profile\/thomas-mckenna\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas J. McKenna"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Thomas “TJ” McKenna is a clinical assistant professor of Science Education and program director for AI & Education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. He is also director of the Center for STEM Professional Learning at Scale<\/a> where his work reaches more than 17,000 educators across 29 states and associate director of educator engagement and impact at the AI & Education Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr. McKenna has spent the past 20 years as a scientist, educator, on-air science communicator, and faculty member focused on what works in STEM education and how to scale it. His current work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and pedagogy: he is building BU’s EdM in AI & Education<\/a> and a companion Graduate Certificate program, designing deterministic AI systems for instructional coaching, and conducting research on AI-mediated professional development.<\/p>\n

His recent work includes the NGSS AI Curriculum Coach and the Phenomena Coach, tools built on deterministic architectures that deliver the knowledge infrastructure embedded in high-quality instructional materials at the exact moment teachers need it, in a form designed to deepen rather than bypass professional judgment. He is also the founder of Phenomena for NGSS<\/a>, an educational resource used by more than 5 million educators and students across 100 countries.\u00a0Dr. McKenna’s scholarly contributions include the book Making Sense of Sensemaking<\/em> (Teachers College Press & NSTA Press, 2025) and a developing theoretical framework on why the defaults of generative AI (fluency, efficiency, answer-generation) can work against the conditions that make learning possible, and what it looks like to design differently.<\/p>\n

His work has been recognized in the United States and internationally. He is an ISDDE Fellow<\/a> and a member of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI<\/a>. He has presented at the European Science Education Research Association conference in Copenhagen, the University of Cambridge Workshop on Educational Dialogue in AI, and at national conferences including NARST, NSTA, and NSELA. Across two decades, his work has returned to a single question: what does it actually take to support teachers well, at scale, and over time?<\/p>\n

Recent News<\/h3>\n