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.
Harpreet Auby
PhD Student in Chemical Engineering
Harpreet (he/him) works with Dr. Milo Koretsky and helps study learning assistants and their role in the classroom as well as machine learning applications within educational research and evaluation. Additionally, he is involved in projects studying the uptake of an instructional tool called the Concept Warehouse. His research interests include chemical engineering education, learning sciences, and social justice.
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.
Ian Descamps
PhD Student in Physics Education
Ian studies how students experience reformed (or non-traditional) instructional labs in physics, and what that means for their learning. By examining how students perceive, understand, and frame their engagement with lab activities, he aims to gain a better sense of how and whether these new labs are achieving their goals.
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?
Sarah Kaczynski
PhD Student in STEM Education
Sarah is a first year 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 first year 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.
Nicolette Maggiore
PhD Student in Chemistry
Nicolette works on the Facilitation Practices of Instructional Assistants project, which looks at IA-guided interactions in introductory physics and chemistry lectures. She is interested in investigating the impacts learning assistants can have on student reasoning in introductory general and organic chemistry sequences.
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.