Wolff-Michael Roth

Wolff-Michael Roth has obtained a M.Sc. (physics) from the University of Würzburg (Germany), and a Ph.D. on a topic in cognitive development from the College of Science and Technology at the University of Southern Mississippi. He also holds a specialization in statistics for the social sciences. He taught school science in the 1980s, then taught statistics in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) before assuming the (endowed) Lansdowne Chair of Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria. Over the years, he has received many awards for best papers and books, early career awards, and a culminating lifetime achievement award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. He has been repeatedly honored for his work in longer journal essays. Roth received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ioannina, Greece. His most recent award is a best paper award at ICSE for a paper on studying software engineering beyond 2025. Roth has researched knowing and learning across the lifespan, from early childhood to retired scientists. Though a lot of his research has been conducted in the context of science and mathematics at school, he has done many long-term ethnographic studies (alone or with students). He studied field ecologists (3 yrs), fish culturists (5 yrs), experimental biologists (5 yrs), environmental activists (8 yrs), electricians at school and work (4 yrs), and seafarers (3 yrs). His most recent ethnographic effort was devoted to aviation, where he conducted field research for 3 years. Roth published across many scientific disciplines, including the natural sciences, psychology, sociology, education, and linguistics. He has (co-) written or (co-) edited 56 books, 205 book chapters, and 455 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has been editor of Mind, Culture and Activity (which became part of Tompson ISI under his reign) for 5 years, founded Cultural Studies of Science Education, which he co-edited for 5 years, and has been a co-editor of Forum Qualitative Social Research for 14 years. In addition, he has been associate editor and held other editor and editorial board functions for many journals.