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PEOPLE

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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. 

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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.    

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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.

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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

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

Amanda Wolski
Research Assistant
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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

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

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Samhita Chandu
Research Assistant
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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.

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Sarah Athar
Research Assistant
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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
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Hilda Mendoza-Avila
Research Assistant
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Halli Lecanlale
Research Assistant
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Kelsey Schultz
Research Assistant
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Aishat Durojaiye
Research Assistant
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Angie Salguero
Research Assistant
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Fernando Mantilla
Research Assistant
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Grace Pnacek
Research Assistant
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Aliza Lisan
Graduate Research Assistant
Cecilia Heineke
Research Assistant
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Veronica Grosso
Masters Thesis Advisee
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Kessie Olekanma
Research Assistant
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Ravel Valdez
Research Assistant
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Rose Maxime
Research Assistant
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Haeun Kim
Research Assistant
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Seema Khan
Research Assistant
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