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.
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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
Veronica Grosso
Masters Thesis Advisee

Veronica is a Masters student at UIC, majoring in computer science. She is interested in the impact of technology on people and in their different interaction methods with it.

Kessie Olekanma
Research Assistant

Kessie Olekanma is a fourth year neuroscience major at UIC. She is interested in public health and loves to travel. Her pronouns are she/hers.

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.
Ravel Valdez
Research Assistant

Ravel is a 3rd year undergraduate computer science major at UIC. He is interested in both foreign and programming languages, and seeks to pursue graduate education.

Haeun Kim
Research Assistant

Haeun Kim is an undergraduate majoring in computer science and minoring in Finance at UIC. She is passionate about learning, interested in data science, and participating in STEM.

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.

Rose Maxime
Research Assistant

Rose Maxime is 2nd year student majoring in computer science. I am interested in cyber security and giving back to the community out reach programs.

Seema Khan
Research Assistant

Seema Khan is an undergraduate at UIC majoring in computer science. She is interested in researching human-computer interaction and enhancing her skills in software engineering.
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
