TELS Community Post-Doctoral Scholars

Current

  • Elizabeth Gerard
    University of California, Berkeley
    libbygerard@berkeley.edu
    Libby was a TELS Fellow from 2003-2008. She completed her PhD from Mills College in 2008 and is now a post-doctoral scholar with the TELS Community. She studies the relationship between professional development, technology-enhanced instruction and student knowledge integration in inquiry science. Libby is particularly interested in how to use technology-enhanced assessment data to support teacher and principal decision-making to improve inquiry instruction and student learning. Libby leads the TELS professional development activities including summer institutes, sustained inquiry based communities, and teacher mentoring.
    TELS
    MODELS
    CLEAR
    VISUAL
  • Kevin McElhaney
    UC Berkeley
    kevin777@berkeley.edu
    Kevin studies how the design of computer-mediated inquiry instruction can help students develop coherent understanding of complex science topics. His research focuses on topics in high school physical science. He is most interested in how instruction can help students integrate their understanding of scientific visualizations with their everyday ideas about science.
    TELS
    MODELS
    LOOPS
    SURGE
    VISUAL
  • Kelly (Kihyun) Ryoo
    University of California, Berkeley
    khryoo@berkeley.edu
    Kelly (Kihyun) received her PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design with a specialization in Science Education from Stanford University in 2009. As a post-doctoral scholar, she is working with the Cumulative Learning using Embedded Assessment Results (CLEAR) project. She studies how instruction using visualizations can help middle school students develop a cumulative, coherent understanding of energy concepts in life science. She also studies the roles of explanatory narratives and visual representations as assessment tools and learning activities.
    CLEAR
    VISUAL
  • Camillia Matuk
    University of California, Berkeley
    cmatuk@berkeley.edu
    Camillia has a background in biology, biomedical illustration, and learning sciences, as well as professional experience as a medical illustrator and animator. She is interested in the intersect between symbolic behaviour, interpretation, and design, and in studying how scientific representations can mediate creative thinking, reasoning, and conceptual understanding. On the VISUAL project, Camillia helps design and research how technology-enhanced visualizations can support students' learning and engagement in science. More on Camillia's work can be found on her website: http://sites.google.com/site/cfmatuk/
    VISUAL
  • Jacqueline Madhok
    University of California, Berkeley
    jjmadhok@berkeley.edu
    Jacquie received her PhD from the Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education at UC Berkeley in 2006. She works on assessment and evaluation of TELS instructional materials. Jacquie studies the interaction of students' beliefs about science and science learning and their achievement, as well as diversity, including gender equity.
    TELS
    CLEAR

Alumnae

  • Vanessa Svihla
    University of California, Berkeley
    vsvihla@unm.edu

    Vanessa is an assistant professor in Teacher Education at the University of New Mexico. She received her PhD from The University of Texas at Austin in 2009 in Science Education. She was a post-doctoral scholar on the CLEAR project, where her research interests included understanding how students and teachers might learn from design experiences, and the design of learning experiences that integrate assessment into learning in authentic ways. As a contextualist, Vanessa adopts a range of methods to model learning and to consider the transferability of findings. As part of CLEAR, Vanessa oversaw the analysis of student learning across projects, develops assessments for projects, and in particular, designs the Global Climate Change project. To complement the quantitative methods employed, Vanessa developed case studies of students and teachers using CLEAR projects.

    CLEAR
  • Tamar Ronen Fuhrmann
    University of California, Berkeley
    tamarrf@gmail.com

    Tamar received her PhD in Technology and Science education from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and was a TELS fellow until 2008. Her research interests include investigating how people learn to design educational technology materials and assessing the role of design principles in the design process.

    TELS
  • Jeffrey Holmes
    University of California, Berkeley
    jholmes@eol.org
    Jeff received his PhD in Educational Technology from Vanderbilt University. As a postdoctoral researcher with TELS, Jeff lead the development of two new biology units, co-taught the TELS course on metacognition, and worked with the educational technology design team to develop the next generation WISE/SAIL learning environment. His research focused on how learning can be affected by computer-based tools designed to make the learning process more visible to teachers and students. After TELS, Jeff became Director of Instructional Design at Discovery Education. He currently works on the Learning and Education Team at the Encyclopedia of Life.
    TELS
  • Stephanie Corliss
    University of California, Berkeley
    stephanie.corliss@austin.utexas.edu
    Stephanie received her PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked with the MODELS project examining the impact of professional development and technology-enhanced science instruction. Stephanie helped design and implement professional development materials and activities, including teacher workshops, online teacher tools, and assessments. She also examined student and teacher regulation of learning and inquiry processes during technology-enhanced science instruction. Stephanie currently works as an Instructional Technology Evaluation Specialist at the University of Texas at Austin.
    TELS
    MODELS
  • Keisha Varma
    University of California, Berkeley
    keisha@umn.edu
    Keisha received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Vanderbilt University. As a post-doctoral researcher with TELS, she studied teacher learning and development, focusing on teachers' knowledge of student learning, teaching practices, and technology. Keisha provided professional development support to encourge an integrated understanding of these ideas. She also studied support of scientific reasoning and experimentation for Middle School students, focusing on the relationship between students' interactions with visualizations and their subsequent learning gains and the nature of students' representations of complex systems. Keisha is now a TELS Community research partner and an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.
    TELS
    MODELS
  • Ji Shen
    University of California, Berkeley
    jishen@uga.edu
    Ji Shen received his PhD in Physics Education from Washington University in St. Louis. He revised and developed the TELS high school electrostatics project. Ji is interested in the use of web-based technology in enhancing students' integrated understanding of physics concepts in everyday phenomena. He also collaborated with Mills College on policy studies that focus on scaling up technology-enhanced science curriculum. Ji is currently a TELS Community research partner and an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia.
    TELS
  • Hsin-Yi Chang
    University of California, Berkeley
    hsinyichang@nknucc.nknu.edu.tw
    As a TELS post-doctoral scholar, Hsin-Yi explored the use of computer-based dynamic visualizations to support students in learning science and examined how dynamic visualizations can affect student learning and understanding of science concepts. She designed instructional practices to incorporate learning technologies into science curricula.
    TELS
  • Hee-Sun Lee
    University of California, Berkeley
    heesun.lee@tufts.edu
    Hee-Sun received her PhD in Science Education from the Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Hee-Sun conceptualized, implemented, and analyzed assessments that measure inquiry-based learning of subjects that students have explored using information technology. Her work combines knowledge integration theory as a cognitive foundation, cutting-edge psychometric techniques, and inquiry-promoting pedagogy. She generated information that TELS researchers and teachers are using to modify instruction and revise curricular materials. Hee-Sun is now a TELS Community research partner and an Assistant Professor of Science Education at Tufts University.
    TELS
    MODELS
  • Dalit Levy
    Concord Consortium
    levy.dalit@gmail.com
    Dalit received her PhD in Computer Science Education from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. At the Concord Consortium, she lead the development of the chemistry unit on phase change, integrated curricular developers' needs with new information technology developed by the Concord Consortium, and worked with the partner schools in Massachusetts to test and run TELS projects.
    TELS
  • Michelle Williams
    University of California, Berkeley
    mwilliam@msu.edu
    Michelle received her PhD in Education from UC Berkeley in 2004 and was originally a TELS fellow. She directed professional development efforts in North Carolina and Virginia for TELS. Michelle organized and lead development activities, including mentoring middle and high school science teachers, designing and maintaining online teacher communities, and implementing teacher training workshops. She investigated students' learning outcomes and studied the impact of information technology on middle and high school science teachers' practices. Michelle is currently a TELS Community research partner and an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University.
    TELS