Mata, Dr. Edward

Dr. Edward Mata is originally from Orange, California and was born into a proud Marine Corps family that experienced duty stations in Camp Pendleton, California, Henderson Hall Fort Meyers, Fairfax, Virginia, Rodman Canal Zone, Panama, Marine Corps Air Station (LTA) Tustin, California, and El Toro Marine Base, El Toro, California. He began his undergraduate education by earning his Associate Arts degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Saddleback College, and transferred to California State University, Long Beach to complete his Bachelor of Arts in Biology. He then completed his Single Subject Teaching Credential and taught 8th and 9th grade science for the Long Beach Unified School District for three years. During his first teaching assignment, Dr. Mata completed his Master of Arts degree in Educational Administration from California State University, Long Beach and secured his next teaching position with the Lake Elsinore Unified School District where he taught high school Integrated Science, Biology, Marine Biology, and Chemistry for the next 15 years. During his tenure with the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, Dr. Mata conducted numerous conference presentations for the California State Teacher’s Association (CSTA), National Science Teacher Association (NSTA), and San Diego Science Education Association (SDSEA) dealing with innovations in chemistry performance assessments, microscale labs in mini-research projects, developing an integrated science program, and final exam projects. In 2004, Dr. Mata began his own educational consulting business, EM Enterprises, which developed and marked a series of staff development presentations to address issues in critical thinking, teacher effectiveness, and high school science curriculum design. In 2005, Dr. Mata accepted his current teaching position with the Hemet Unified School District where he has taught high school Biology, Chemistry, and Advanced Placement Chemistry. He will be completing his 19th year with the Hemet Unified School District this year that will capstone a 37-year teaching career having taught science to approximately 8,000 students in Southern California. Dr. Mata also served as an adjunct professor with the University of Phoenix teaching Environmental Science courses at the Associate and Bachelor undergraduate levels from 2009 to 2018.  

In 2020, Dr. Mata graduated from Grand Canyon University with a Doctorate (Ed.D.) in Organizational Leadership with an Emphasis in K-12 Leadership. Dr. Mata’s dissertation focused on the effect of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) on high school chemistry students’ end-of-course (EOC) exam scores and American College Testing (ACT) science scores. In addition, Dr. Mata has had two peer-reviewed articles published in 2022. The first of these peer-reviewed articles examined the effectiveness of POGIL on chemistry EOC exams and the second article compared the advanced placement (AP) biology scores of White and Hispanic students from California, Texas, and Arizona. Dr. Mata currently has two additional peer-reviewed articles being considered for publication dealing with White and Hispanic student performance on AP Chemistry and AP Physics exams.

Dr. Mata has been recently hired to serve as an adjunct professor at Carolina University and is looking forward to helping his doctoral learners develop and successfully maneuver their doctoral journey to become the educational leaders of the future.