Dr. Erin Walker
Principal Investigator
Erin is a Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, with joint appointments in Computer Science and the Learning Research and Development Center. She uses interdisciplinary methods to improve the design and implementation of educational technology, and then to understand when and why it is effective. Her current focus is to examine how artificial intelligence techniques can be applied to support social human- human and human agent learning interactions.
Maria Xu
Research Coordinator and Lab Manager
Maria is the Research Coordinator for the FACETlab at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are broadly focused on mental health, SEL, and technology. She is interested in how Massive Multiplayer Games and narrative-heavy single player games can be designed and evaluated for achieving empathy and teamwork. She received her BA in Psychology and Cognitive Science from Rutgers University and graduated as an Honors College Scholar. She hopes that her work will help teachers and mental health providers reach new audiences while promoting mental health and SEL.
Dr. Luis E. Pérez Cortés
Postdoctoral Associate
Luis is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pittsburgh. His work explores how the playing, making, and modding of games affects the literacy practices and perspectives of under-represented and under-served populations. Luis earned his PhD in Learning, Literacies, and Technologies from Arizona State University. His work has been published in scholarly outlets such as the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning; CoDesign; Information and Learning Sciences; and Educational Technology Research and Development. Luis is driven to investigate how people can see the world, society, and themselves as malleable, re-designable entities, and to probe the role that technologies may play in this endeavor.
Dr. Aditi Mallavarapu
Visiting Scholar & Postdoctoral Associate
Aditi is a Technology and Learning Sciences Postdoctoral researcher at Digital Promise Global and visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work investigates the under-explored space of applying human-centered learning analytics and machine learning techniques for exploration-based learning that takes place in complex open-ended learning environments (e.g., museum exhibits and serious games). Combining the human-centered approach working alongside interdisciplinary researchers, educators, learners and policy makers, with the technical data-driven approaches, Aditi is driven to reimagine open-ended learning environments as data-driven systems designed to engage learners with real-world complex problems.
Dr. Cassandra Kelley
Broader Impacts Project Coordinator
Cassandra has over fifteen years of experience in K-12 and teacher education. She earned her doctorate degree in Learning Technologies from Pepperdine University and is passionate about exploring new tools that can improve teaching and learning. She currently supports the FACETlab and the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences(CIRCLS) nonprofit organization with AI and emerging technologies research projects led by academic researchers, K-12 educators, industry researchers, and other interested groups. Cassandra also teaches graduate courses for National University in the Master of Science in Designing Instructional and Educational Technology (MSDIET) Program.
Deniz Sonmez Unal
PhD Student
Deniz is a doctoral student in intelligent systems at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work explores modeling student cognitive states during usage of different educational technologies. Her current projects include understanding the low-level cognitive mechanisms of cognitive control and rule learning to identify key moments during learning as well as distinguishing between productive and unproductive states students experience. She has presented her work at professional conferences such as Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED).
Jordan Barria-Pineda
PhD Student
Jordan is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests are related to Information Visualization, Adaptive Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction fields. He likes exploring how to combine these knowledge areas with the aim of building systems that are able to influence users to make positives changes in their online behavior, specifically in online learning environments.
Nannan Wen
PhD Student
Nannan is a doctoral student in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her primary research interest is HCI, focusing on Personal Informatics (PI) systems. Her current research explores how missing (sparse) data influences end-users' daily life functioning and how to build tools to mediate missing data's effect on them. She recently also worked on finding missing data in PI systems, and she recently worked on building systems for visualizing missing data in Fitbit devices for running activities.
Ishrat Ahmed
PhD Student
Ishrat is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. Her primary research interest is HCI, with a focus on educational technology. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to develop technical solutions that can enhance learning and participation in an educational environment. Her work focuses on incorporating social and contextual factors into a learning technology and designing interventions for collaborative middle school math classrooms. She recently worked as an NLP-Data Science Intern at the Vail Systems.
Yuya Asano
PhD Student
Yuya's is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interest lies in the intersection of natural language processing (NLP), human-computer interaction (HCI), and educational technology. He works on the application of NLP in the domain of education to make distance learning more interactive and offer rich education to everyone regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Zak Risha
PhD Student
Zak is a doctoral student in Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. An interdisciplinary scholar, Zak's research lies at the intersection of education, technology, and the humanities, exploring how to create educational tools and systems with complex, multifaceted outcomes that go beyond knowledge acquisition. More specifically, he is interested in how to engage youth with data intellectually, collaboratively, and personally, as well as how to design technologies for unstructured, intricate skillsets like reading and interpreting poetry.
Jennifer Nwogu
PhD Student
JJennifer is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh studying information science. Her research focuses on identifying goals and understanding the design preferences of users when interacting with information technologies. Her focus aims to create reflection tools that support information literacy and user design preferences on digital devices through collaboration with end users.
Paras Sharma
PhD Student
Paras is a new Computer Science PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests lie in the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Natural Language Processing (particularly Natural Language Dialogue Systems). He wants to research ways to apply HCI and NLP to enhance group interactions and make educational technologies more interactive.
Amanda Buddemeyer
PhD Student
Amanda is a doctoral student in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her interdisciplinary research touches on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and Learning Science. She is interested in building educational technologies that embolden learners to shape the environments and technologies around them. Amanda's work involves participatory design of technologies that help underserved learners develop STEM identities, with a particular interest in conversational interfaces.
