Oluwatoyin Ajilore
PhD Student in STEM Education
Oluwatoyin’s research interests intersect responsive teaching, learner’s agency, authentic scientific thinking, and sociocultural frameworks particularly for college-level students in the Global South. She has a first degree in Geology and a MSc Degrees in Economic Geology and Mineral Exploration. Prior to coming to Tufts, she taught at undergraduate students at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria with a focus of creating learning spaces where learners could grapple with authentic knowledge-building practices.
Avis Carrero
PhD Student in Civil Engineering
Avis (He/Him/His) is a Black, LatinX doctoral candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research focuses on understanding faculty pedagogical decisions surrounding issues of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) from a critical, qualitative perspective. He has a master’s degree in civil engineering with a specialized focus in geosystems engineering. Avis is also a committee member of the Anti-racism and Equity Action Team (ACT) at his alma mater, the University of Connecticut, and a student member of Tufts School of Engineering’s DEI committee. Before joining Tufts in 2019, he spent two years as a geotechnical site engineer in the northeastern U.S.
Emmanuel Daring
PhD Student in STEM Education
Emmanuel (he/him) is a PhD student in STEM Education with experience teaching chemistry and calculus at the secondary school level. His research interests include curriculum design intentionally supporting students who have struggled in previous STEM courses and the role of secondary schools in fostering the social identity development of their students. Emmanuel is currently working on a research project examining how students conceive of the structures of multiplication and division and the impact that has on their understanding of situations in calculus and physics.
Samuel Gavitte
PhD Student in Chemical Engineering
Sam (he/him) researches engineering practices and how to facilitate students' engagement in them in laboratory courses. He is concerned with both designing instructional tools and analyzing them with qualitative methods. His interests are in implementing authentic engineering problems in the classroom and supporting students to engage with these problems in diverse and agentic ways.
Sophia Jeon
PhD Student in STEM Education
Sophia analyzes the dynamics of student group work in STEM classes and labs, with a focus on equity. She explores the overlap of student behavior and affective learning, motivated by the question— How can students have equitable interactions with one another?
Shirin Kuppusamy
PhD Student in STEM Education
Shirin (she/her) is a STEM Education PhD student in Dr. Milo Koretsky’s research group. Prior to starting at Tufts, she studied computing at Olin College of Engineering and then worked in industry for two years. Her current research with the Koretsky group is focused on studying how undergraduate students engage with ambiguity, uncertainty, and confusion in STEM classrooms. She also works on programming situated virtual laboratories to integrate with an instructional tool called Concept Warehouse. Her research interests include university education, accessibility, and the intersections of science and computing/engineering.
Sarah Kaczynski
PhD Student in STEM Education
Sarah is a PhD student in STEM Education. She received her BS in Computer Science and MS in Data Science from Wentworth Institute of Technology while working in IT/software engineering. She is currently working with Dr. Milo Koretsky on the development and maintenance of engineering education software, namely the Concept Warehouse. Her research interests include computer science education, educational technologies, and the gamification of learning.
Clara Mabour
PhD Student in STEM Education
Clara Mabour is a STEM Education Ph.D. She has a bachelor’s in environmental science from the University of Florida. Prior to starting her studies at Tufts, Clara taught high school science and research and she ran STEM and invention focused after school programs and summer camps in South Florida. Clara’s research interests focus on the intersection of culture, learner agency, materials, and problem solving in informal and formal K-12 STEM learning spaces.
Olha Sus
PhD Student in STEM Education
Olha is working on the Multiplicative Foundations of Calculus project. The project is based on examining possible constraints in students’ understandings of how multiplication and division relate quantities and form new quantities in problem situations. The latter plays a fundamental role in applying integration and differentiation techniques to problems in mathematics, engineering, and other sciences.
David Zabner
PhD Student in STEM Education
David plans to study CS and Engineering education. He hopes to focus on finding ways to introduce complex CS and engineering topics in early grades as well as helping undergraduates approach CS scientifically.
IRLI Alumni
Harpreet Auby - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rowan University
Ian Descamps - Assistant Professor, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Nicolette Maggiore - Postdoctoral Scholar, Tufts University
Isabella Stuopis - Assistant Teaching Professor, Brown University