John Buckwalter Research Associate John has become increasingly involved in Career Technical Education at the local and State level and feels grateful that he can use skills learned from his SEIRI colleagues in forwarding best practices in Career Technical Education. John also is involved in K-12 STEM teacher observation in the "Educate Me" minority program through the Indiana Commission of Higher Education grant and is a member of his local school board which enrolls over ten thousand students.
Tony Chase Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy, Indiana University Tony Chase, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor for the Department of Occupational Therapy. He is an expert in research methods and assessment whose research in childhood disability and mobility has resulted in a collaboration between Indiana University, Riley Hospital for Children, and The Crann Centre for Rehabilitation in Cork, Ireland. Prior to beginning his appointment as faculty at the School of Health & Human Sciences, Dr. Chase was an Evaluation and Research Specialist at the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute at IUPUI where he worked on research related to STEM Education, Educational Psychology, and Assessment. Dr. Chase graduated from the University of Nebraska with a B.A. in 2012, and received his M.S. in Organic Chemistry at Purdue University.He earned his doctorate in Educational Psychology & Research Methodology from Purdue University in 2016.
Dr. Chase focuses on assessment as it relates to children with disabilities. Specifically, his research focuses on improvement of mobility skills and social participation of children who are wheelchair users.
Annwesa Dasgupta Project Manager at the Shipley Center of Digital Learning and Innovation, Boston University
Annweesa's role involves working intensively with Boston University’s faculty, departments and schools to provide guidance to project teams on technology-enabled inclusive pedagogy initiatives. It will also involve codeveloping proposals focused on experimentation with emergent educational technologies.
Justin Hess Assistant Professor, Purdue University Dr. Justin L Hess is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Previously, Justin served as assistant director of the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute at IUPUI. Dr. Hess's research interests include exploring empathy's functional role within engineering and evaluating students' learning in the spaces of design, ethics, sustainability, and innovation. Justin received his PhD from Purdue University's School of Engineering Education, along with a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. As a doctoral student, Justin was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Justin is currently the program chair of the Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division (LEES) with the American Society for Engineering Education, as well as chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Committee on Sustainability subcommittee on Formal Engineering Education.
Prathima Lakmala Business Intelligence Developer at Florida Department of Health Prathima Lakmala previously worked with SEIRI as a Graduate Research Assistant.
Yujin Lee Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota Dr. Yujin Lee is an assistant professor of Math Education in School of Education and Human Development at University of North Dakota. Previously, Dr. Lee served as a postdoctoral researcher of SEIRI at IUPUI. During her time in SEIRI, she had been involved in numerous NSF proposals and granted projects, such as S-STEM, IUSE, and CAREER, as an external evaluator or a consultant. Dr. Lee received her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Math Education from Texas A&M University with distinguished honor. Dr. Lee's research interests have been centered on curriculum design and evaluation in STEM education, affective mathematics engagement, innovative instructional practices (e.g., project-based learning (PBL)), large-scale national/international data (e.g., PISA, TIMSS, or STAAR). Her statistical expertise includes meta-analysis, SEM, and HLM. Her professional activities have been included in numerous conference presentations and articles.
Snehasis Mukhopadhyay Professor, Indiana University
Dr. Snehasis Mukhopadhyay is a Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, and served as the Associate Director of the STEM Education Innovation Research Institute (SEIRI) at IUPUI during the years 2020-2022. He has previously served as Associate Chair of the Computer and information Science department at IUPUI. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University, and a Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India with a Gold medal. He received a CAREER award from the NSF for integrating research and education. He has continuously received research funding from government agencies including NSF, NIH, NOAA, and USDA. He has twice received the Indiana University Trustees Teaching Awards (TTA) in the years 2014 and 2017. He was recognized and honored in the year 2020 at an event titled “Celebration of Teaching and Engaged Learning” by the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor of IUPUI for having “an important and meaningful impact”. He has provided extensive professional services including being an NSF review panelist on many occasions, and being the General Chair of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge management (CIKM). He has over 100 research publications broadly in the field of Artificial Intelligence. His current research interests are in Reinforcement Learning, Interactive Data Science, Computational STEM Education, and Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Education.
Virginia Rhodes Project Director for the Women in Engineering ProActive Network’s (WEPAN) ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network, Washington, DC Virginia Rhodes, M.S., is the Project Director for the Women in Engineering ProActive Network's (WEPAN) ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network, a National Science Foundation grant-funded project focused on advancing the culture of inclusion and diversity within STEM disciplines. She provides leadership and direction for all day-to-day operations and is primarily responsible for integrating activities across the ARC Network such as the Virtual Visiting Scholars Program, the ARC Research Board, the ARC Network Community, and in-person and virtual convenings.
Prior to joining WEPAN, Virginia served as a research associate at the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute and as project coordinator for Project EPIC, an NSF ADVANCE Adaptation grant. Virginia will bring the knowledge and experience she has gained working at SEIRI with her on the next stage of her career journey and is excited to continue promoting racial and gender equity within STEM and higher education.
