Name: Ricardo Martinez
Title: Assistant Professor of Education (math education)
Department: Curriculum and Instruction
Phone: 814-865-2226
Email: rfm5798@psu.edu
Office address: 271 Chambers Building
Directory entry: https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dr-ricardo-martinez
Ricardo Martinez is an assistant professor of mathematics education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He joined College of Education at Penn State in the fall of 2022 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education. Prior to earning both a doctorate in mathematics education and a master of education in curriculum and instructional technology from Iowa State University, Martinez was a high school mathematics teacher in McFarland, California, and Colo, Iowa. Both in and outside of the classroom, he seeks to create mathematical learning experiences that return the legitimacy of mathematical knowledge creation to the people.
His lifework is rooted in critical youth studies and spiritual activism where the goal is to create spaces for young people to liberate themselves both in the classroom and within the community through collective action. Martinez’s research in mathematics education focuses on the teaching and learning of mathematics for/with emergent bilinguals, ethnomathematics, teacher education, critical mathematics education, ethnic studies math and community engagement through Youth Participatory Action Research.
Outside of mathematics education, Martinez’s research builds on YPAR lifework (specifically PAR EntreMundos epistemologies) to grapple with the tensions of what it means to participate with students, teachers and community members when engaged in critical scholarship and practice. As a Fulbright Specialist, Martinez worked in Montevideo, Uruguay, on a project titled, “Place-based pedagogies in provincial Uruguay,” where he worked with youth and teachers to collectively create cartographies of 'conocimientos,' or knowledge cartographies. So far, Martinez has worked with youth in Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska and Uruguay in YPAR as youth explore their interests in researching the root causes of societal injustices.
Martinez values the relational aspect of learning where it is important to remember that people are more important than any research project, manuscript, subject area, class or degree; where everyone needs to take time to make sure that they are OK and find time to center their emotional, physical and mental health. This requires a commitment to oneself, others and the (shared) world.