PEOPLE

Joseph E Michaelis
Director and Principle Investigator
Joe is the Director of the Learning + Interest + Technology Lab. Joe's research focuses on social interactions between children and robots in learning contexts. Interest development is at the forefront of this work, and each project is designed to utilize the social interactions with robots to support robot learning and interest in STEM domains.

Rabia Ibtasar
Graduate Research Assistant
Rabia is a PhD student at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on improving the experience of women in computer science learning environments and fostering a sense of belonging for young learners in this field.
_edited.jpg)
Paul Hatch
Graduate Research Assistant
Paul is a PhD student at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the UIC. Prior to joining LSRI, he practiced industrial design at a global consultancy. His interests are in technology to aid learning, interest development, and visualization methods for conceptualization and collaboration.

Samuel Arnold
Graduate Research Assistant
Sam is a PhD student at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Sam's research focuses on designing educational technologies for improving student engagement and motivation while learning.

Md Anisur Rahman
Graduate Research Assistant
Anis is a PhD student in Computer Science at UIC. Anis's research focuses on User Interface designs for educational technologies. He has experience in HCI and as a full-stack software engineer including JavaScript, CSS, accessibility and UX design and contributes to open source and privacy initiatives. He enjoys cricket, chess and ping pong.
Undergraduate Research Assistants

Emily Carroso
Research Assistant

Emily Carroso is an undergraduate majoring in computer science at UIC. She is interested in teaching computing education and STEM outreach programming.
Meghan Guo
Research Assistant

Meg is an undergraduate majoring in computer science at UIC. She is interested in STEM outreach programming, reading, and traveling
Amanda Wolski
Research Assistant

Amanda is an undergraduate majoring in computer science with a concentration in software engineering. She is passionate about cyber security, STEM outreach programming, and environmentalism

Sylvia Joseph
Research Assistant

Sylvia Joseph is an undergraduate majoring in computer science at UIC. She is interested in computing research, NLP and STEM outreach programming.

Samhita Chandu
Research Assistant

Samhita Chandu is an undergraduate majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Mathematics at UIC. She is interested in computing research, NLP, Artificial Intelligence and Software Development.

Sarah Athar
Research Assistant

Sarah is an undergraduate majoring in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has great interest in STEM outreach programming, software development, and machine learning.
Alumni
Ese Omene
Research Assistant


Hilda Mendoza-Avila
Research Assistant


Halli Lecanlale
Research Assistant


Kelsey Schultz
Research Assistant


Aishat Durojaiye
Research Assistant

Angie Salguero
Research Assistant

Fernando Mantilla
Research Assistant


Grace Pnacek
Research Assistant


Aliza Lisan
Graduate Research Assistant
Cecilia Heineke
Research Assistant

Veronica Grosso
Masters Thesis Advisee


Kessie Olekanma
Research Assistant

Ravel Valdez
Research Assistant


Rose Maxime
Research Assistant


Haeun Kim
Research Assistant


Seema Khan
Research Assistant
