Current Students - Counseling, Educational Psychology & Special Education

EPET Gathering at The Baseball Game — September 2022, EPET Gathering at Lansing Lugnuts Baseball Game

Aisel Akhmedova

Email: aiselakh@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
She is interested in the influence of social media on teenagers and learning outcomes, creativity, and identity.

Madison C. Allen Kuyenga

Madison C. Allen Kuyenga

Email: allenm72@msu.edu
Cohort: 2019/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Madison’s current research interests are in culturally responsive and sustaining computing. She is currently working on culturally relevant and sustaining design strategies for educational technology and implementations to help all teachers in creating greater experiences of equity in CS education. This includes drawing on the ways of knowing, being, and doing from BIPOC, rural, and low-income communities and providing pathways for including those ways in the CS classroom. Madison has a background in African American Studies and Social Psychology that inform her current research trajectories.

William Nicholas Bork Rodriguez

William Bork

Email: borkwill@msu.edu
Cohort: 2018/On Campus

Bio:
William Bork is a researcher and educator interested in data science, international education, and teacher professional practice. Licensed as a P-12 school building principal. Former K-12 teacher with intercultural work experience in the USA, Mexico, and Taiwan. Multilingual in English and Spanish.

Utku Caybas

Email: caybasiz@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/On Campus
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Utku is broadly interested in how social and contextual factors influence students’ motivation. Specifically, he works to understand how different levels of peer relations, such as peer interactions, friendships, and peer groups, play a role in students’ motivation. He is also interested in how students’ perceptions of economic inequalities shape their motivation.

Goun Choi

Email: choigoun@msu.edu
Cohort: 2019/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Goun is interested in how adolescents’ social exclusion experiences influence their social and academic motivation and behaviors. Her interest also includes building resiliency, empathy, and self-regulation through adverse social experiences. She is also interested in designing more inclusive and safe learning environments through cooperative learning.

Ian Marshall Clemente

Ian Clemente

Email: cleme185@msu.edu
Cohort: 2015/On Campus
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Use of digital technologies for multi-dimensional growth (including for students with special needs); incorporating cognitive flexibility into formal and informal learning environments; using adaptive teaching strategies (including use of Web-based platforms) to facilitate students’ navigation of ill-structured situations; development of curriculum and resources designed to support students with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.

Kyle Dunbar

Email: dunbark3@msu.edu
Cohort: 2018/Hybrid
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
As an educational technology coach in a middle school Kyle is interested in the intersection of equity, technology and project-based learning. She is interested in how students can use technology to create authentic products that solve a problem in their community and the results a learning experience of this nature have on students. She is particularly interested in how equity plays a role in the extent to which student-centered learning is enacted in schools and how to support teachers by using teaching practices that will benefit all students.

Elvin Fortuna

Email: fortun29@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/Hybrid
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Elvin is interested in the development of expertise and adaptability in technology-mediated environments for use in complex and ill-structured domains. He is particularly interested in instructional design principles to prepare learners for realistic and ill-structured problems.

Keywords: Expertise, Adaptability, Technology, Complexity, Ill-structured

Mike Frazier

Email: frazi163@msu.edu
Cohort: 2023/On Campus
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Mike is a former K-12 English teacher and is broadly interested in the intersections of human and machine cognition. Specifically, he studies the impact and emerging best practices for integrating emerging technologies, like generative Artificial Intelligence tools, in learning and instructional contexts.

Briana Green

Email: green209@msu.edu
Cohort: 2019/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Briana’s current research focuses on understanding Black educators and students belonging experiences and utilizing asset-based pedagogies for teacher, student and parent interventions.

Megan Harris

Email: harrimeg@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with thoughtful technology usage to enhance student choice and engagement within general education classrooms.

Jingwen He (Jessie)

Jingwen (Jessie) He

Email: hejw@msu.edu
Grad Year: 2023/On Campus

Bio:
Jingwen (Jessie) is interested in using quantitative methods and advanced technology to explore students’ social-emotional learning, such as student-teacher relationships, autonomy support, motivation, and self-regulation.

Anne Drew Hu

Email: annedrew@msu.edu
Cohort: 2020/On Campus
Pronouns: they/them

Keywords:
Critical computing education, K-12 CS education.

Ying Hu

Email: huying2@msu.edu
Grad Year: 2016/Hybrid

Bio:
Ying is a PhD student in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University, a lecturer of Chinese at the University of Vermont, and sometimes, a robot on MSU campus. Originally from China, Ying got her Master’s degree in Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, where she was actively engaged in language learning in 3D virtual worlds.

Keywords:
Cognitive Flexibility, Adaptive Expertise, Instructional Technology, Multilingual Education

Saki Inoue

Email: skinoue@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Relation of intercultural experience and self-efficacy among preservice teachers, international comparison of teacher education

Larissa Jakubow

Email: jakubowl@msu.edu
Cohort: 2020/Hybrid
Pronouns: She/her/hers

Bio:
Larissa Jakubow is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology (EPET) program at Michigan State University, advised by Dr. Emily Bouck. Her research interests are focused on United States History curriculum, primary source documents, accessibility for students with disabilities, and inclusivity and equity of voice within history curricula.

Hyein Jee

Hyein Jee

Email: jeehyein@msu.edu
Cohort: 2023/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Interests:
Culturally responsive pedagogy integrated into teacher education, utilizing educational technologies to foster students’ academic, social-emotional, and cultural competence development.

John Keane

Email: jnk@msu.edu
Cohort: 2020/On Campus
Pronouns: he/him/his

Interests:
Motivation in college STEM settings.

Eun Ha Kim

Email: kimeun31@msu.edu
Cohort: 2019/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Eun Ha’s research interests are in promoting adolescents’ academic achievement, classroom engagement, emotional well-being, and high school completion, especially for those students from historically marginalized backgrounds. Specifically, Eun ha is interested in examining how achievement motivation, teacher-student relationships, and resilience relate to these adolescents’ educational outcomes and in developing interventions that increase their motivation, achievement, and academic resilience.

Garam Lee

Cohort: 2019/On Campus

Tingting Li

Email: litingt1@msu.edu
Cohort: 2020/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Tingting Li is from China. Her research interests center on the theory-driven design of learning environments to support all K-12 students’ deep science learning. She employs cutting-edge technologies (e.g., Artificial Intelligence) and considers psychological factors (e.g., engagement, social and emotional learning) when designing the learning environments.

Qiyang Lin (Minnie)

Qiyang (Minnie) Lin

Email: linqiyan@msu.edu
Cohort: 2021/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Minnie is interested in the intersection of cognitive flexibility and multimedia. Particularly, how the role cognitive flexibility plays in learning, motivation, and adaptation to diverse real-world scenarios. She explores how cognitive processes in learning can enhance our capacity to adjust knowledge to novel situations. Additionally, she examines the potential of educational games as effective learning tools. How can multimedia learning in online instruction and virtual environments? She wants to know strategies that optimize learning experiences in these digital realms, ensuring that learners are not just informed, but also adaptable and agile in their knowledge application.

Keywords:

Multimedia Learning, Complexity, Game-based Learning, Virtual Reality, Motivation

Tommy Lister

Email: listerth@msu.edu
Cohort: 2018/Hybrid

Bio:
Based in Southern California, his research is centered on faculty engagement and its relationship with student learning and engagement. His work and research also focuses on the efficacy of active learning in alternative learning modalities.

Keywords:
Online Learning, Hybrid Teaching, Teacher Development, Faculty Engagement

William Van Luven (Billy)

William (Billy) Van Luven

Email: vanwill1 @msu.edu
Cohort: 2023/On Campus
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Billy is interested in multicomponent interventions that can be used by educational practitioners to support students within their classrooms. He’s also particularly interested in students’ sense of belonging, how it correlates to teacher practices, and how it contributes to achievement motivation.

Eileen Lynch (Mooney)

Eileen Lynch (Mooney)

Email: mooneyei@msu.edu
Cohort: 2016/Hybrid

Bio:
Eileen has been teaching mathematics for 12 years, and has also taught art. She has a BA in Philosophy, an MFA in Painting, and an ALM in Mathematics for Teaching. She is interested in creating and facilitating learning experience that promote deeper understanding in the domain of mathematics–specifically through discourse. Certain affordances and constraints of face-to-face discourse have led her to explore the use of dynamic mathematics software and Google docs as a venue through which students can target their understanding, by increasing the demand on their language acquisition in synchronous, online discourse.

Sheza Mansoor

Email: shezam@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/Hybrid
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Sheza Mansoor is currently a Ph.D. student of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Teaching from Boston University. Her research interests have to do with understanding the psychological and motivational processes that young children undergo during learning. She is passionate about learning how mindsets can boost children’s literacy skills and engagement from the lens of cognitive neuroscience and development. She is also interested in how students of color and English Language Learners’ experiences are shaped in the classrooms.

Samuela Mouzaoir

Samuela Mouzaoir

Email: mouzaoir@msu.edu
Cohort: 2020/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Samuela is interested in understanding how students respond to academic challenges. Specifically, she works to identify which obstacles students routinely face and how they understand and engage with the process of “bouncing back” from those challenges. She is also interested in how students’ racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds impact their experiences of adversity and resilience in the classroom.

Olamide Ogungbemi

Email: Ogungbe1@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Olamide is interested in integrating computational thinking in K-12 education and teachers’ professional development, as well as cultural responsive computing.

Zachary Opps

Cohort: 2018/Hybrid

Megan Ray

Cohort: 2022/Hybrid

Sarah Reiley

Email: reileysa@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/Hybrid
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Sarah is interested in reading comprehension and language development in adolescent emergent bilingual and multilingual learners. She is a K-12 English and social studies educator, currently based at a dual-language school in Argentina.

Stephanie Shin

Email: sshin@msu.edu
Cohort: 2019/On Campus
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
Stephanie is broadly interested in understanding how social and contextual features of learning environments influence student motivation, engagement, and social-emotional development. Specifically, her research is focused on exploring the ways by teachers’ instructional practices the learning conditions shape students’ motivational beliefs such as self-efficacy.

Brooke Starks

Email: starksb4@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/Hybrid
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Bio:
I am interested in Adult Basic Education (K-12 curriculum for students who are 18 or older), and the use of technology to increase student engagement and help students to gain employability skills.

Jennifer Sutcliffe

Email: sutclif9@msu.edu
Cohort: 2022/Hybrid
Pronouns: she/her/hers

Interests:
Game studies, game-based learning, social media, online learning communities, informal learning, electracy

Lyle Tavernier

Email: taverni6@msu.edu
Cohort: 2023/Hybrid
Pronouns: he/him/his

Bio:
Broad research interests include pre-service teacher education, effective reflection practices, and educator professional development. Specifically, Lyle is interested in how professional development impacts upper elementary teachers’ attitudes and practices related to integrating block-based coding activities into STEM instruction for students in groups traditionally marginalized and underrecognized in those fields.

Last updated October 2023