Academic Interests

As an Educational Psychologist, I am interested in learning as a deeply human process shaped by experience, culture, participation, emotion, creativity, voice, and interaction with the world. My research explores how people engage with knowledge, construct meaning, navigate uncertainty, and transform themselves through educational experiences. 

At the center of my work is a core idea: learning changes us. It influences how we understand ourselves, others, any kind of knowledge, and the world around us. My research seeks to better understand the conditions that support meaningful learning and the educational experiences that help learners develop agency, confidence, understanding, and lasting engagement with what they learn.

I am especially interested in:

• Performatic Learning — a framework I developed that positions learning as becoming, emerging through the interaction of epistemic agency, embodied experience, cultural mediation, uncertainty, and multimodal representation.

• Meaningful Learning & Educational Experiences — examining how learners engage with knowledge, construct meaning, navigate uncertainty, and develop lasting relationships with what they learn.

• Formal & Informal Learning Spaces — classrooms, museums, community settings, cultural sites, and other environments where learning emerges through exploration, participation, interpretation, and self-directed engagement.

• Educational Assessment & Epistemic Participation — exploring assessment as an opportunity for learners to demonstrate understanding, express knowledge, communicate meaning, and position themselves as contributors to learning.

• Zine-Making as Cognitive & Epistemic Practice — advancing zines as multimodal tools for reflection, memory, emotional regulation, self-transformation, authorship, and knowledge construction.

• Multimodality, Embodied Cognition, & Meaning-Making — examining how experience, emotion, materiality, embodiment, and systems of representation shape participation, understanding, and learning.

• Artificial Intelligence & Human Learning — exploring how learners engage with AI as a collaborative tool for inquiry, reflection, creativity, and knowledge construction.

• Self-Coherence, Coping Strategies, & Well-Being — exploring how people can balance and recover from challenging events or pressure/stress in their lives, finding strategies to improve well-being and resilience, transforming into better versions of themselves.

• Mixed Methods Research — integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches to better understand learning as a complex human process.

My academic work is guided by a commitment to relational accountability: approaching research as situated, transparent, and responsive to the voices and epistemic agency of learners, while contributing to a deeper understanding of how individuals engage with knowledge, navigate uncertainty, construct meaning, and grow through educational experiences.