Research

Accelerating STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) literacy across the full population of learners in the United States must be a national priority. Our global competitiveness in the coming generations depends on the ability of our workforce to master concepts in these fields and apply them across the American economy. The security of our nation requires that not only our leaders, but all citizens, be able to make science-based decisions in areas ranging from health and climate change to voting security and on-line privacy. Central to this effort is the issue of equity. The full benefits to our nation will only be realized when STEM literacy is achieved uniformly across all members of our society, regardless of race, gender, economic status, or any other demographic characteristic.

Research Areas

Sensors

Portable, body-worn sensors including a pocket-sized for non-invasive bio-fluid collection.
Flexible, breathable, biosensor suit to monitor physical and chemical markers.
Multi-modal headgear measuring brain activity and eye-gaze.
High resolution, compact, low cost, millimeter wave multi-input/multi-output radar platforms to capture spatio-temporal dynamics of the learners’ behavior.

Analytics

Rigorous theoretical framework and suite of analysis tools for analysis of text, audio, video, and all data from full sensor suite.
Framework for qualitative analytics matched with the interests of ELS researchers.
Models which quantify interactions among groups of learners and instructors, given the processed language, speech, and sensor data.

Systems

Privacy-preserving, scalable acquisition and storage systems for the single and multiple classroom data at timescales and volumes never before available to individual researchers.
End-to-end privacy for data from the edge sensor suite.

Education and Learning Sciences

Bringing together advanced sensing and analytics to understand what students from various backgrounds bring to their education, how their various resources interact with the contexts of learning and instruction, and how they progress as STEM learners over their educational careers.
Equity and inclusion in the context of STEM education.