bio

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at CSUSB and Principal Investigator directing the Leaning to Learn (L2L) Lab, where we study the development of reasoning, learning and achievement. (I reside in Los Angeles.)

Prior to my current appointment I held positions in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylania and Thomas Jefferson University. As an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Thomas Jefferson University I was awarded the 2023 Provost’s Early Career Faculty Achievement Award, and the 2022 Jefferson Emerging Medical Scholars (JEMS) Award. I was a 2021 Deeper Learning Fellow with the American Education Research Association (AERA) funded by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR).

During the Spring 2023 semester I completed a micro-Sabbatical at Princeton University, in the Department of Psychology with Dr. Tania Lombrozo.

Since receiving my PhD in Developmental Psychology working with Dr. Deanna Kuhn at Columbia University, I have completed postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA and UCSD working with Education researchers and Learning Scientists on large grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), where I managed large projects with Dr. William A. Sandoval, in the Department of Education and collaborated with Dr. Gerardo Ramirez in the Department of Psychology.

My research interests include basic and applied research on both individual and developmental differences in reasoning, learning, self- regulation, autonomy, and academic achievement, where I bridge the fields of cognitive science and education. My work is guided by a broader goal of informing policy, practice, and intervention that aim to reduce societal inequalities, some of which, I believe, very well stem from learning environments and social contexts.

In 2016 I received my PhD in Developmental Psychology working with Dr. Deanna Kuhn at Columbia University, where I also completed a MS in Applied Statistics. My dissertation was chaired by Dr. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and joined by Drs. Kimberly Noble, Tory Higgins, and Nim Tottenham. A graduate fellow in Dr. Irv Garfinkel’s Columbia University Population Research Center (CPRC), I've had a variety of research experiences, including serving as an Arthur Zankel Urban Research Fellow for inner-city youth, participating in CPRC’s Fragile Families working group, and serving as lead researcher in studies spanning across three boroughs of New York. Prior to my graduate work, I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, where my primary advisor in the Department of Psychology was Dr. Joseph Campos, and Robert Reich, J.D. from the Goldman School of Public Policy.