LRDC Accolades


LRDC Faculty Awarded 2023-2024 Momentum Funds Grants

March 19, 2024

Lindsay Clare Matsumura Scott Fraundorf Marta Ortega-Llebaria

(Left to right: Matsumura, Fraundorf, Ortega-Llebaria)

Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Associate Director for Educational Research and Practice Professor, Learning Sciences and Policy Program, School of Education, and Senior Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center, and Scott Fraundorf, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychology, and Research Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center are part of a team that was awarded a Momentum Teaming grant for "Artificial Intelligence Integrated into the Learning of Rehabilitation Science Skills." This is a partnership of faculty in Physical Therapy, School of Computing and Information (SCI) and LRDC. Reivian Berrios Barillas, Department of Physical Therapy is the team lead.

Abstract: Can artificial intelligence (AI) improve the learning experience for the next generation of physical therapy students? Occupations for physical therapists are expected to grow 15%, which is much faster than the average job growth. The University of Pittsburgh is committed to providing for this need by adding a hybrid Doctor of Physical Therapy program and admitted its third cohort this year. However, it is unknown if the didactic education given was adequate for these students and will continue to be sufficient. Using AI with hybrid learning, we will investigate students' academic performances and learning perceptions with intelligent tutoring systems in a human anatomy course. This course is critical for many subsequent courses and provides essential knowledge that influences students' clinical abilities. The team will evaluate various AI mechanisms for tracking time spent on difficult concepts for high- and low-achieving students and creating intelligent textbooks with ChatGPT to provide feedback. Predictive AI models will be integrated with visual dashboards for the instructor and student to assist each student in understanding the best progression for personalized learning. This project develops the infrastructure for intelligent mechanisms that can assist in early detection of knowledge gaps and facilitate early remediation.

Scott Fraundorf is also part of the Priming grant "Dialogue, Discourse and Diversity: Changing Social Judgements through Listening Effort" with Marta Ortega Llebaria, LRDC Center Associate, Department of Linguistics and Melissa Marks from Pitt Greensburg. Ortega-Llebaria is the team lead and additional team members are from the Department of Psychology/LRDC and the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Discourse and Dialogue.

Abstract: Teachers and nurses working in the community are likely to encounter varied accents and dialects. Unfamiliar accents often demand heightened listening effort, potentially reducing perceptions of speaker competence. Encouragingly, a recent Nature Report (Rovetti et al. 2023) suggests that increased exposure to such accents decreases listening effort and positively influences judgments of speaker competence, carrying substantial implications for social justice. However, further research is imperative to comprehensively grasp the factors affecting listening effort, necessary for developing effective tools against language discrimination. Here, we test two pivotal factors—listeners' language ideologies and attitudes—and their impact on both perceived and actual listening effort in the context of education and nursing students at the Greensburg campus. These students have limited exposure to non-native speakers compared to their Oakland peers but will serve increasingly diverse populations susceptible to accent-based bias. We aim to elucidate how training influences students' listening effort, social judgments, and the evolution of their ideologies and attitudes while pinpointing which students benefit most from this training. This study also merges Professor Marks' dedication to enhancing diversity education at the Greensburg campus with ongoing research by Professors Fraundorf and Ortega-Llebaria on our perception of individuals with non-standard accents.

Read more about the Momentum Funds awardees


Benjamin Rottman Receives the 2024 Tina and David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award

February 5, 2024

Benjamin Rottman

Benjamin Rottman, Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC) Scientist, and Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, is the recipient of the 2024 Tina and David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award.

Established in 1998 through a gift from Dietrich School alumnus David Bellet and his wife, Tina, the Bellet Teaching Excellence Award recognizes outstanding and innovative teaching in undergraduate studies at the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

The Bellet Award is the second accolade for Rottman in the current academic year. In September 2023, Rottman received a discipline-Based Science Education Research Center (dB-SERC) Course Transformation Award for "Flip It and Reverse It." The Course Transformation Awards are aimed at transforming courses and improve student learning in those courses by adopting evidence-based practices. In the transformation, Research Methods, a large-enrollment course for Psychology majors, was transformed to offer students a choice between flipped active-learning and traditional courses.

Rottman's research interests focus on causal learning, reasoning, judgment, and medical decision-making. Recently, Rottman and his LRDC co-authors contributed to The Cognitive Science of Medical Expertise, a special issue published by the Journal of Cognitive Research on the development and retention of medical expertise.

Read more about the Bellet Awards in the March 5 Pittwire article.


Graduate Student Council Announces Fall Award Recipients

December 11, 2023

Nabila Jamal-Orozco, Morgan Gray,  Lorraine Blatt, and Zhexiong Liu

(L-R) Nabila Jamal-Orozco, Morgan Gray, Lorraine Blatt, and Zhexiong Liu

The LRDC Graduate Student Council (GSC) is made up of representatives from all disciplines in the Center to provide students with cross-disciplinary professional development, social opportunities, and representation at LRDC Executive Committee meetings.

The GSC has created and oversees the LRDC GSC Award, which provides financial support for the development of new, innovative, and interdisciplinary research conducted by graduate students within LRDC (amount of award varies based on request). Support can be used for travel costs, participant compensation, or specific items such as research software, conference fees, or society memberships.

Kudos to recipients of the Fall 2023 awards: Nabila Jamal-Orozco, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal's lab; Morgan Gray, Kevin Ashley's lab; Lorraine Blatt, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal's lab; and Zhexiong Liu, Diane Litman's lab. More about the recipients and their work at LRDC below.

Nabila Jamal-Orozco, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology's Cognitive Program, studies socio-cognitive and emotion regulation interventions for learning, critical consciousness development in youth, and contextual factors influencing youth development and family processes. At LRDC's 2023 Board of Visitors (BOV) conference in early November, Jamal-Orozco presented "Critical Racial Consciousness for Young People of Color and the Emotional Processes that Undergird its Development" with Research Scientist Daphne Henry. Jamal-Orozco was also featured alongside Lorraine Blatt in the Pitt Research Report "Convergence" (page 44) an in-depth report presented by the University of Pittsburgh Senior Vice Chancellor for Research. The two were highlighted for their work on making research demographics more inclusive and intentional by encouraging researchers to think critically about how and why they use demographic data.

Morgan Gray is a graduate student in the School of Computing and Information's Intelligent Systems Program. His work centers on natural language processing and machine learning, with a particular focus on criminal law and procedure as well as text analytics in the legal domain. At the BOV, Gray presented "Teaching Reading and Summarizing via Argument-focused Text Annotation" with Research Scientist Scott Fraundorf and Senior Scientist Kevin Ashley.

Lorraine Blatt, graduate student in the Department of Psychology's Cognitive Program, explores how public policy and structural factors impact child development, and how these relationships are further influenced by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. Blatt was awarded a 2023 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow. Blatt was also featured alongside Jamal-Orozco in the Pitt Research Report "Convergence" (page 44) an in-depth report presented by the University of Pittsburgh Senior Vice Chancellor for Research. The two were highlighted for their work on making research demographics more inclusive and intentional by encouraging researchers to think critically about how and why they use demographic data.

Zhexiong Liu, a graduate student of the Department of Computer Science's Computer Science Program, is interested in the intersections between natural language processing and computer science. He investigates the use of natural language processing in building educational applications, such as automated writing and evaluation systems. At the BOV, Liu presented "An Automated Writing Evaluation System to Support Text-based Argumentation and Revision" with Senior Scientist Diane Litman.


Kevin Ashley Participates in the Aula Magna XXVII, Inteligencia Artificial Conference

November 28, 2023

Kevin Ashley at conference

Kevin Ashley, Professor of University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Graduate Program in Intelligent Systems, and LRDC Senior Scientist, attended the Aula Magna XXVII Conference hosted by the Academic Vice-Rectorate of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima this past November. At the conference, Ashley delivered an invited talk, titled "Using Generative AI to Model Case-Based Legal Arguments," to an audience of more than 80 people via Zoom. The following day, the conference hosts presented Ashley with a Spanish translation of his 2017 book, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics¹. The translated version, Inteligencia Artificial Y Analitica Juridica, will be published by Yachay Legal Press.

Ashley's well-respected Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics is designed to explain computational processes to non-programmers, describing how artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to change the practice of law. His work connects computational models of legal reasoning directly with legal text, generating arguments for and against particular outcomes, predicting outcomes, and explaining these predictions with reasons that legal professionals can comprehend and evaluate. His exploration not only enriches the understanding of AI's transformative impacts on legal practices but also empowers professionals to better predict these impacts themselves.

The conference, titled "Artificial Intelligence: How to Face the Challenge From University", took place from November 27th to 29th and initiated discussions on the growing influence of AI on present and future human activity. Speakers discussed possibilities for solving everyday problems and, conversely, potential declines in humanity. Topics included new educational possibilities for higher education (Guillem García Brustenga, Open University of Catalonia), ethics and artificial intelligence regulation in Europe (Lorena Jaume-Palasi, Ethical Tech Society), and Ashley's use of generative AI to model case-based legal arguments.

Ashley's involvement in these discussions positions his work as a pivotal force in shaping the ethical and practical landscapes of artificial intelligence. His insightful presentation, coupled with the Spanish translation of his seminal work, will advance the discourse surrounding AI and legal analytics by expanding his research to a wider, cross-cultural audience. This expansion will serve academic and professional communities alike, contributing to a global conversation on the intricate relationships between artificial intelligence, law, and practical ethics.

Read more about the Aula Magna XXVII Conference, read a related blog post from Yachay Press, or watch a TikTok created to promote Ashley's Inteligencia Artificial Y Analitica Juridica.

See also Explaining Legal Concepts Using GPT-4.

¹Ashley, K. (2017). Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law Practice in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press


Jamie Hanson's COVID Study Gets Widespread Coverage

November 1, 2023

arm with a bandage

November 1, LRDC Research Scientist Jamie Hanson, Kristen O'Connor (Saint Vincent College), and LRDC colleagues Dorthea Adkins and Isabella Kahhale published "Childhood adversity and COVID-19 outcomes in the UK Biobank" in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. This study investigates the links between childhood adversity with COVID-19-related hospitalizations and mortality in the UK Biobank. Using a database of approximately 150,000 midlife adults, Hanson and his colleagues discovered that those who experienced childhood trauma had a 20% greater risk of suffering negative effects from COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.

Since its publication, Hanson's article has garnered national and international publicity. A few of the many news outlets that ran the article include the Press Trust of India; Latestly (approximately 4.3 million monthly viewers); The Economic Times (15 million monthly readers); California Healthline, re-published the article via CIDRAP, the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Outlets closer to home included Pittsburgh's WESA News Station,and a November 14 Pittwire article.

Read more about the dissemination of the article via BMJ Article Metrics

map associated with Hanson's study
BMJ Altmetric, Childhood adversity and COVID-19 outcomes in the UK Biobank Demographic, downloaded on November 20, 2023

Angela Stewart Receives NSF Racial Equity in STEM Award

September 28, 2023

Angela Stewart

Angela Stewart, Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Information (SCI), and LRDC Research Scientist, has received the NSF Racial Equity in STEM Education award for "Black Girls as Creators: An Intersectional Learning Ecosystem Toward Gendered Racial Equity in Artificial Intelligence Education." This research grant was awarded to Stewart and her collaborators at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Texas (UT) Arlington, as well as community partners Assemble and Manchester Youth Development Center here in Pittsburgh.

This project will work with artificial intelligence (AI) creators and Black girls, aged 9-14, to expand the range of perspectives and voices that are a part of AI technology. The project will include after school and summer camps for both Black girls and the AI creators to work together on the design and creation of AI projects.

Funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education activity (EDU Racial Equity), the activity supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. The total intended award amount is $1,299,715.

Stewart was also featured in the current exhibit "Black Voices in Computing" Black scholars have been making integral contributions to the field of Computing and Information since its onset. This exhibit seeks to recognize and uplift the achievements and stories of those scholars. The focal point of the exhibit revolves around Stewart's voice as she discusses inclusivity and diversity in the tech space, her research values, and approach to teaching computing, and the activities that motivate and inspire her. The exhibit is currently being shown in the lobby of the Information Sciences (IS) Building, 135 N. Bellefield Avenue.

Stewart's research was featured in a recent LRDC Research News and a September 28 Pittwire article. She also participated in the LRDC Learning Sciences Video Series with a video on equity and engagement.


Michelene "Micki" Chi Wins Yidan Prize for Education Research

September 27, 2023

Yidan logo

LRDC Alum Michelene "Micki" Chi has been awarded the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Research. Chi, who is the director of Arizona State's Learning and Cognition Lab, as well as Regents Professor and the Dorothy Bray Endowed Professor of Science and Teaching at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, won the Yidan Prize for her ICAP (Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive) theory that helps teachers design lesson plans and activities that are more engaging for students and improve their comprehension of complicated topics, including STEM subjects.

Chi's well known and often cited ICAP framework predicts that learning improves significantly from the passive, to the active, then the constructive and interactive modes (based on students' thinking processes). First published in 2009, ICAP's framework has been widely accepted in academic circles, and five ICAP-focused papers have been cited more than 4,000 times.

The ICAP framework is also seen as having particular value in potentially addressing a need to broaden participation of a diverse range of students pursuing STEM fields. Students who are challenged with grasping STEM-related subjects often opt out of considering these careers, and many organizations and education groups are working toward addressing that issue, including Pitt's Broadening Equity in STEM (BE STEM) Center. LRDC Research Scientist and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Inclusion and Outreach Strategy Jennifer Iriti is a co-principal investigator in the BE STEM network initiative.

Chi came to LRDC in 1975 as a post-doctoral fellow after receiving her PhD at CMU. She worked closely with then LRDC Director Robert Glaser, publishing extensively in the areas of the nature of expertise, problem-solving ability, and self-explanations. She remained at LRDC until 2008, when she moved to ASU.

The Yidan Prize, the biggest international award in education, spotlights education changemakers. Chi was awarded the prize for Education Research; Shai Reshef, president and founder of the University of the People, was awarded the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Development. Chi will receive the award in a special ceremony in December in Hong Kong, where she will receive a gold medal and a $3.8 million award to help scale her work.

Other Media Mentions:

ASU Professor Michi Chi Wins Yidan Prize for Education Research, ASU Campus News, September 27, 2023

University of the People founder and Arizona State professor win Yidan Prize for education work, Associated Press, September 27, 2023

Reimagining education for the needs of modern learners, Financial Times, September 27, 2023


Ben Rottman Receives dB-SERC Award for "Flip It and Reverse It"

August 28, 2023

Ben Rottman

Ben Rottman, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, and Research Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC), has received a dB-SERC Course Transformation Award for "Flip It and Reverse It," his project on providing students in research methods a choice between learning styles. Rottman's project focuses on transforming Research Methods, a vital, large-enrollment course for the Psychology major, by offering students a choice between flipped active learning and traditional courses. The central goal for his project is to create two different versions of the class and examine motivational and learning outcomes across these two sections.

In 2023, the Discipline-Based Science Education Research Center (dB-SERC) awarded 14 Course Transformation Awards to faculty in natural sciences and economics for this year. Since 2014, dB-SERC has supported natural science faculty members in developing projects to bring innovation to teaching and learning in the natural sciences. These projects seek to transform how classes are taught by adopting evidence-based teaching practices to improve student learning outcomes in these departments. Recipients receive funds for equipment, student support, or summer salary for faculty.


Kevin Binning Receives dB-SERC Award for Ecological Belonging Intervention

August 28, 2023

Kevin Binning

Kevin Binning, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, and Research Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC), has received a dB-SERC Course Transformation Award. His project focuses on scaling up an ecological belonging intervention to foster equity and inclusion in introductory economics courses. His project seeks support to scale-up a classroom-based, ecological-belonging intervention across Introductory Economics courses at Pitt. This project seeks to establish infrastructure in the Economics Department to support the training and delivery of the intervention across all introductory Micro- and Macroeconomics courses.

In 2023, the Discipline-Based Science Education Research Center (dB-SERC) awarded 14 Course Transformation Awards to faculty in natural sciences and economics for this year. Since 2014, dB-SERC has supported natural science faculty members in developing projects to bring innovation to teaching and learning in the natural sciences. These projects seek to transform how classes are taught by adopting evidence-based teaching practices to improve student learning outcomes in these departments. Recipients receive funds for equipment, student support, or summer salary for faculty.


Omid Fotuhi Awarded Momentum Funds for "Belonging in Graduate and Professional Programs"

August 28, 2023

Omid Fotuhi

Omid Fotuhi, Research Associate, Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), has received a Teaming and Scaling award from the Pitt Momentum Funds for a program that addresses belonging in graduate and professional programs. Fotuhi and colleague Ann Sinsheimer's, Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusive Excellence and Professor of Legal Writing, project "Testing the Effectiveness of Faculty as Facilitators of Psychosocial Resilience Interventions for Students in Professional and Graduate Programs" places mental health and well-being as the primary focus and catalyst for helping law students feel like they belong in the program and the field. Sinsheimer was inspired by her own time in law school to develop interventions and resources for students in her legal writing class.

This year, project teams from the Teaming and Scaling categories share their experiences with the Pitt Momentum Funds program through a series of videos to not only showcase their awarded projects and raise visibility but to also share insights into the program for future applicants. View the video for Belonging in Graduate and Professional Programs


Shirley Duong Receives Next Generation of Family Math Researchers Dissertation Fellowship

August 7, 2023

Shirley Duong

Shirley Duong, Cognitive Psychology (Melissa Libertus, Advisor), was selected for a Next Generation of Family Math Researchers Dissertation Fellowship from the Center for Family Math. The Center is part of the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE). Dissertation Fellows receive a stipend and participate in the Fellowship learning community through both virtual and in-person meetings. The Center for Family Math's Research Consortium members provide supplemental mentorship. NAFSCE is the first membership association focused solely on advancing family, school, and community engagement. Their mission is to advance high-impact policies and practices for family, school, and community engagement to promote child development and improve student achievement. The idea of creating a professional association to advance high-impact family, school, and community engagement grew out of the work of two national coalitions, the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE) and the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group. Their vision is to have a world where family engagement is universally practiced as an essential strategy for improving children's learning and advancing equity and they constantly do work towards supporting this vision.


Team Led by LRDC Researchers Receives Best Poster Award at AIED2023

July 20, 2023

Best poster awardees AIED 2023

Yuya Asano, Diane Litman, Mingzhi Yu, Nikki Lobczowski, Timothy Nokes Malach, Adriana Kovashka, and Erin Walker received the award of Best Poster at AIED2023. Their poster was on the Impact of Experiencing Misrecognition by Teachable Agents on Learning and Rapport.

Yuya Asano, Diane Litman's lab; Diane Litman, Computer Science, LRDC; Mingzhi Yu, Diane Litman's lab; Nikki Lobczowski, Walker/Nokes-Malach's lab; Timothy Nokes Malach, Psychology, LRDC; Adriana Kovashka, Computer Science; Erin Walker, Computing and Information, LRDC. (Pictured left to right).

The 24th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2023, took place July 3-7, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan, and virtually. The AIED 2023 theme was "AI in Education for Sustainable Society". As said on the AIED 2023 website, the AIED community concerns itself with the mission of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to contribute to a world with equitable and universal access to quality education at all levels.


Linsah Coulanges Receives 2023 Tim Post Award

June 7, 2023

Linsah Coulanges

Linsah Coulanges, Developmental Psychology (Heather Bachman, Advisor), has received the 2023 Tim Post Award for her paper "Examining Profiles of Children's Screen Time and Associations with Academic Skills." This award is given annually in Developmental or Cognitive Psychologyto a graduate student who has demonstrated research excellence in cognitive or developmental psychology.

The award is in honor of Tim Post, Ph.D., 1986. Tim Post was a graduate student in cognitive psychology, receiving his doctorate in 1983. As he was finishing his degree and seeking a position he was diagnosed with leukemia. During the final months of his life, he and his wife, Jane Williams, made the decision to ask any memorial money to be given to an annual award fund to encourage excellence in graduate student research. Dr. James Voss was then asked to administer the program. The annual award is $500, the account also covering the additional cost of a small reception at the award ceremony. The first award was made in 1989.

Tim was extremely well-liked, and was especially known for his sharing of time and ideas with others, especially graduate students, and he was a true role model in the function of a senior graduate student helping in the schooling and work of the younger students. He was quite intelligent, had a productive graduate career, and subsequently obtained a position at Bell Labs. Moreover, even in his short career there, he won two research awards. Tim did his undergraduate work at Syracuse, he liked sports, and he and Jim usually attended the Pitt-Syracuse football and basketball games.

The Tim Post Plaque which displays each year's awardees and can be found in the LRDC 5th Floor display case. Click here for more on the Tim Post Award on the LRDC website.


Lorraine Blatt Awarded NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship

May 23, 2023

Lorraine Blatt

Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) Graduate Student Lorraine Blatt, Developmental Psychology was named a 2023 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow. The 35 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellows - selected from a pool of 355 applicants - receive funding for a period of up to two years to complete their dissertations and also attend professional development retreats.

Lorraine's winning dissertation, "Contexts of School Segregation and Children's Academic Skills and Social Development in Elementary School," uses multi-level growth curve and mixed effects modeling to examine links between school segregation and children's academic skills and social development in a nationally representative sample of more than 16,000 children from kindergarten through fifth grade. This study will examine whether these links differ across children's racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. It will explore social outcomes rarely considered in segregation research-including children's prosocial behavior, school belonging, and stress about school.

"Lorraine's dissertation is innovative and interdisciplinary, drawing theories and methods from psychology, education, and economics. It will strengthen knowledge of associations between de facto segregation and children's development by testing these relations across multiple ecological levels (e.g., at the child, school, and district levels) with new data that are nationally representative," said advisor Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, Chair and Professor, Department of Psychology.

At LRDC, Lorraine's research examines how structural influences on social policy and education shape children's developmental trajectories and ultimately uphold structural inequities. She is particularly interested in how de facto school segregation relates to academic and social development in early and middle childhood. Since 2020, she has published four peer-reviewed articles in AERA Open, American Educational Research Journal, International Journal of STEM Education, and Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Prior to graduate school, Lorraine was a researcher at the Urban Institute where her work focused on child care, education, and anti-poverty policies. In graduate school, she has continued her commitment to research-informed policy through work with the Research-to-Policy Collaboration and teaching an undergraduate "Child Development and Social Policy" course. Lorraine has an M.S. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B.A. in Psychology from Grinnell College.


2023 LRDC Internal Award Program Expanded to include School of Education

May 18, 2023

The LRDC Internal Awards Program is designed to support the development of new, innovative and interdisciplinary research by LRDC scientists. This program is our major strategy for stimulating external collaborative applications. Since its 2009 inception, the program's investment of $4.4 million has led to 54 external collaborative proposals; 24 were funded for a total of $26.4 million.

Rip Correnti Diane Litman Lindsay Clare Matsumura Amanda Godley

Kudos to recipients Rip Correnti, (PI) School of Education, LRDC; Diane Litman, Computer Science, LRDC; Lindsay Clare Matsumura, School of Education and LRDC Associate Director of Education Research and Practice; and Amanda Godley, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies.

The research team won the award for their project proposal 'Using ChatGPT to Analyze Classroom Discussions." The aim of this project is to investigate the uses of a cutting-edge AI-driven tool, ChatGPT, for analyzing large datasets of classroom-based teacher and student talk. This proposed project would be a first-time collaboration for Godley, Correnti, and Matsumura, and the grant for this award will last two years.

To strengthen research collaborations with the School of Education, in 2023 LRDC extended its internal awards program and added a new collaborative venture with the School of Education, the Inaugural Joint School of Education-LRDC Faculty Research Awards. The program will award up to $150,000 in funding over two years (maximum of $75,000 per year), but smaller-scale projects are also eligible for consideration. Research teams must have at least one researcher from each unit (SOE and LRDC) entering into a new collaboration.

Two awards for the new Joint School of Education-LRDC Faculty Research Awards were made in 2023.

Daphne Henry Daphne Henry, Psychology, LRDC; and Sirry Alang and Sharon Ross, School of Education, Department of Health and Human Development, received one of the new awards for their research "Race, Class, and Context: Exploring Intersectional Influences on Child and Adolescent Health." This project will help enhance understanding of the mechanisms underlying the emergence and progression of racial health disparities and inform intervention and prevention efforts designed to mitigate them.

Julie Fiez Julie Fiez, Psychology, LRDC; along with Tessa McCarthy and Frances Mary D'Andrea, School of Education, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Leading received funding for "Studying the Neural Basis of Braille Literacy and Numeracy." This project aims to build the foundation for an externally funded program of collaborative research examining the neural basis of braille literacy and numeracy.

Alex Silver Receives FABBS Doctoral Dissertation Research Excellence Award

May 4, 2023

Alex Silver

Alex Silver, Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) Graduate Student, Cognitive Psychology, has received a 2022-2023 Doctoral Dissertation Research Excellence Award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS). The FABBS Dissertation Research Excellence Award is awarded to only two to five students in the country each year.

Alex was awarded the FABBS accolade for her dissertation "Linguistic and social influences on number word acquisition." The overall goal of her research project is to test the process by which infants learn to map number words to quantities and the role of parental input in this process. Results from Alex's research will contribute to the conceptualization and understanding of the development of mathematical thinking in typical development, and individual differences in children's earliest math abilities.

According to Alex's advisor, Melissa Libertus, Professor, Psychology, and LRDC Senior Scientist, "Alex's dissertation will be the culmination of her past work on the development of mathematical thinking in early childhood. It will be groundbreaking in its focus on infants and the environmental factors that shape the development of mathematical understanding at this young age. Throughout Alex's years in graduate school she has worked with numerous families in the Pittsburgh community and beyond sharing her passion for child development and how exciting math can be for young children."

The FABBS Doctoral Dissertation Research Excellence Award acknowledges and honors graduate student scientists who have conducted doctoral dissertation research of superior scientific quality and broader societal impacts. FABBS is a coalition of scientific societies and academic departments that come together to advance advocacy, education, and communication activities in support of the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. A critical part of their mission is to encourage and recognize the work of early career scientists.

Alex has earned other awards such as the Dr. Ruth L. Myers Memorial Award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Department of Psychology, which is presented to a graduate student who has distinguished him or herself as an outstanding mentor of undergraduate students in the lab or the classroom. She was also a recipient of the Spring 2023 LRDC Graduate Student Council Award. She studied Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and earned her MS in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.


LRDC Graduate Student Council Announces Awardees

April 3, 2023

Graduate student awardee head shots

The LRDC Graduate Student Council Award is designed to support the development of new, innovative, and interdisciplinary research conducted by graduate students within the LRDC by providing funds to enable students to complete their research. Each semester two awards of $500 each are awarded.

Kudos to recipients (L-R) Alex Silver, Melissa Libertus' lab; Rebecca McGregor, Diana Leyva's lab; Xueying (Caroline) Ren, Marc Coutanche's lab; Shirley Duong, Melissa Libertus' lab; Isabella Kahhale, Jamie Hanson's lab; Lorraine Blatt, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal's lab. (Pictured left to right).

The graduate student council in LRDC is made up of representatives from each discipline in the Center to provide students with cross-disciplinary professional development, and social opportunities, and as a representative at Executive Committee meetings. The LRDC Graduate Student Council also organizes the LRDC GSC Award each semester. In addition, students are invited to a wide range of student groups across campus.


Tessa Benson-Greenwald Receives Grant-In-Aid from SPSSI

January 17, 2023

Tessa Benson Greenwald

LRDC Post-Doc Tessa Benson-Greenwald has received a Grant-In-Aid from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). Greenwald received this grant for her project "Valuing Perspectives and Promoting Inclusion: The Impact of valuing subjectivity in STEM contexts for underrepresented groups." The SPSSI Grant-In-Aid provides support of scientific research in social problem areas related to the basic interests and goals of SPSSI and particularly to those that are not likely to receive support from traditional sources.


Ming-Te Wang Named Highly Cited Researcher

November 21, 2022

Ming-Te Wang

LRDC Senior Scientist Ming-Te Wang was named a highly cited researcher in the field of Psychiatry and Psychology by Clarivate! Wang's research is in the top 1% of cited papers in Clarivate's database. Highly Cited Researchers have demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple highly cited papers over the last decade. These highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a field or fields and publication year in the Web of Science™. Of the world's population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers™ are 1 in 1,000.


Diane Litman and Colleagues Win Best Paper Award

October 24, 2022

Diane Litman

Kudos to LRDC Senior Scientist Diane Litman and co-authors Zhexiong Liu, Meiqi Guo, and Yue Dai who received Best Paper Award for "ImageArg: A Multi-modal Tweet Dataset for Image Persuasiveness Mining," at the 9th Workshop on Argument Mining, COLING, South Korea 2022. Argument mining provides methods that can find and visualize the main pro and con arguments in written text and dialogue and that enable argument search on the web for a topic of interest. In educational contexts, argument mining can be applied to written and diagrammed arguments for instructing and assessing students' critical thinking.


Chandralekha Singh Receives American Physical Society Dwight Nicholson Medal

October 24, 2022

Chandralekha Singh

LRDC center associate Chandralekha Singh received the 2022 Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach from the American Physical Society. This award recognizes the humanitarian aspect of physics created through public lectures and public media, teaching, research, or science related activities. The medal's citation heralded Singh "for work in broadening access to physics through research into removing barriers to success in the field faced by marginalized groups and how to overcome them, and addressing those challenges directly through meaningful, research-based action." Along with being an LRDC Center Associate, Singh is the Director of the Discipline-Based Science Education Research Center (dB-SERC) and a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Read more about the award in Pittwire


Just Discipline Project Expands to More Schools

October 12, 2022

Ming-Te Wang and James Huguley

The Just Discipline Project, which aims to address disparities in suspension rates for Black and brown students in the region, expanded to include 12 more Pennsylvania schools in fall 2022 and will include another 8 this year. This expansion was supported by a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, $3 million from the Institute for Educational Science, and locally by The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Study at Children's Hospital.

The funding boost will help LRDC Senior Scientist Ming-Te Wang and fellow co-lead James Huguley, associate dean and associate professor in the School of Social Work, replicate the work that began in the Woodland Hills School District in 2017. The Just Discipline Project model focuses on infusing school-wide restorative practices with socio-emotional learning approaches. The aim of this project is to improve students' academic achievement by fostering socio-emotional competencies, reducing racial disparities in school disciplinary practices, and creating a fair, inclusive school climate in participating schools.

Details on expansion of the project and more information about Wang and Huguley are featured in both this October 2022 Pittwire article and also a LRDC Research News Feature.


Psychology Graduate Student Jessica Macaluso Recipient of Psychonomic Society 2022 Graduate Conference Award

October 12, 2022

Jessica Macaluso

Jessica Macaluso, graduate student in the Cognitive Psychology program received a 2022 Graduate Conference Award from the Psychonomic Society. Macaluso was recognized for her work "Study-strategy Perceived Effort and Familiarity Influence Self-regulated Learning Decisions via Perceived Fluency."

Macaluso is a member of Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) Research Scientist Scott Fraundorf's Memory and Psycholinguistics in Learning & Education (MAPLE) Lab. Her research interests include learning and attention in real-world memory contexts, adult aging and memory, metacognition, cognitive neuroscience, and emotional memories.

The award, given annually to up to 20 graduate students, provides a cash prize and recognition at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society scheduled for November 17-20 in Boston, Massachusetts, and online.


Jamie Hanson Awarded a 2022 Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award

September 21, 2022

Jamie Hanson

Strong mentoring support is a key factor in graduate student success. Jamie Hanson, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, and Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC) Research Scientist, was awarded a Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award.

Hanson was nominated in February 2022 by graduate students Stefanie Sequeira, Isabella Kahhale and Esther Palacios-Barrios along with former staff member Kelly Barry. The Excellence in Graduate Mentoring award recognizes the considerable efforts and accomplishments of members of the graduate faculty serving as effective mentors of graduate students. The 2022 award committee, representing all Dietrich School divisions, appreciated and celebrates the contributions to the culture of inclusive excellence in graduate mentoring exemplified by all nominees for this year's awards.

By inviting graduate students to identify faculty in the early and early-middling stages of their career who embody excellence in mentoring, the Dietrich School seeks to reinforce and highlight practices that enhance the overall quality of graduate education. Each award carries a cash prize. Faculty members will be recognized at an awards ceremony on October 28, 2022, in the William Pitt Union.


Litman, Matsumura, Correnti Awardees in Learning Engineering Tools Competition

June 28, 2022

A team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center- Diane Litman, Professor, School of Computer Science, Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Professor, Learning Sciences and Policy Program, School of Education, and Richard Correnti, Associate Professor, School of Education — were among 30 awardees of the Tools Competition Catalyst Prize. The team received this award for their project utomated Assessment of Classroom Discussion Quality, a web-based app to advance learning science research.

Automated Assessment of Classroom Discussion Quality will create a web-based application that uses natural language processing and machine learning methods to analyze classroom discussion quality at scale. Discussion quality measures will look at both teacher and student talk moves, will be fine-grained enough to test theory-driven hypotheses around the role of talk and learning, and will facilitate longitudinal studies to better understand trajectories of growth toward ambitious and equitable teaching practices.

"By leveraging key advances in computation, this group of winners will help solve some of our nation's biggest education problems," said Kumar Garg, the Vice President of Partnerships at Schmidt Futures. "It is energizing to work with organizations, which have the potential to dramatically improve outcomes for so many students at scale."

Supported by The Learning Agency and Georgia State University, this is the second year of the Learning Engineering Tools Competition. The winning teams will share insights from their work with external researchers to facilitate experimentation to improve learner outcomes and better understand student learning.


Daphne Henry Elected National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow

June 6, 2022

Daphne Henry

Daphne Henry, LRDC Research Scientist and Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology was named a 2022 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. This fellowship provides $70,000 to early-career scholars to focus on their research and attend professional development retreats. Drawing from multidisciplinary scholarship, Henry's research investigates how socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity intersect to shape children's academic development and developmental contexts, including their home, school, and neighborhood environments. She employs a diverse methodological tool-kit, including large-scale longitudinal data analysis and mixed-methods approaches, to delineate the processes linking race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status to children's academic functioning and to uncover how complex patterns of family, community, and societal inequality influence children's early development and long-term well-being. This year, the 25 postdoctoral fellows were selected from a pool of 258 applicants. Read more at the National Academy of Educations's website.


Ming-Te Wang, Psychology and Education, and James Huguley, School of Social Work, Receive $4 Million Grant from the U.S. Department of Education for Just Discipline Project

February 28, 2022

Ming-Te Wang and James Huguley

Ming-Te Wang, Professor of Psychology and Education and LRDC Senior Scientist, and James Huguley, Associate Dean, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and Associate Professor, School of Social Work. Wang and Huguley were awarded $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for their project "Just Discipline Project: Reducing Racial Disparities and Promoting School Climate." Read more about this work on the LRDC website.

The Just Discipline Project is a research-to-practice initiative designed to advance achievement for all students by implementing and evaluating school-based relational climate and restorative practice programs. This project will serve close to 3,200 public school students of color and historically under-served middle school students.

The Just Discipline Project model focuses on infusing school-wide restorative practices with socio-emotional learning approaches. The aim of this project is to improve students' academic achievement by fostering socio-emotional competencies, reducing racial disparities in school disciplinary practices, and creating a fair, inclusive school climate in participating schools. This is a multi-year, multi-phase project that will pilot the program in both Cleveland and Greater Pittsburgh during 2022-2023. It will then conduct a multi-site cluster randomized trial in years 2 and 3 in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.


Brian Galla, Education, Timothy Nokes-Malach, Psycholgy, and Melanie Good, Physics and Astronomy, awarded National Science Foundation grant

October 20, 2021

Brian Galla, Timothy Nokes-Malach, and Melanie Good were awarded a National Science Foundation grant for their project "Collaborative Research: Investigating the Impact of Mindfulness Training to Mitigate Psychological Threat and Enhance Engagement and Learning to Undergraduate Introductory Physics." Galla, Associate Professor in the School of Education and a Research Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), is the principal investigator (PI) and Nokes-Malach, Professor in the Department of Psychology and Research Scientist at the LRDC, and Good, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, will be serving as the co-principal investigators. In a series of randomized field experiments involving undergraduates enrolled in introductory physics courses, Galla, Nokes-Malach, and Good will test the hypothesis that a brief mindfulness training program can help students make more adaptive stress appraisals, thereby mitigating psychological threat and boosting engagement.


Professor and Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC) Scientist Garners Two Research Excellence Awards

March 5, 2021

MingTe Wang

Ming-Te Wang, Professor of Psychology and Education, and Research Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center has been awarded the "Distinguished Research Award for Human Development & Learning" from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The award recognizes scholars who strive to improve the educational process through scholarly inquiry and dissemination of research results. Wang received the award for a series of three meta-analytic articles on parental ethnic-racial socialization and youth of color's developmental outcomes.

Wang is also the recipient of the 2021 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) "Excellence in Research Award." The SSWR award recognizes social work research that advances knowledge with direct applications to practice, policy, and the resolution of social problems. The award was granted for Wang's publication "Parental Ethnic-Racial Socialization Practices and the Construction of Children of Color's Ethnic-Racial Identity: A Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis." Access a list of Wang's recent publications.

Wang's research on racialized experiences of children of color has also been recently recognized by a Heinz Endowment grant. In this work, Wang, with co-Principal Investigator James Huguley, Interim Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems and assistant professor, School of Social Work, received a $500,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments. The Heinz grant will support continued work on a school discipline program Wang and Huguley have implemented in the Woodland Hills School District, the "Just Discipline" project. "Just Discipline" builds on research on racialized experiences in school contexts and leverages that scholarship to implement a contextually tailored school discipline and climate program. This is the third consecutive grant that Wang and Huguley have received from The Heinz Endowments, totaling $1 million dollars. Wang and Huguley will work in collaboration with the Pitt School of Social Work's Center on Race and Social Problems, the School of Education's Motivation Center, and the Woodland Hills School District in this research-to-practice partnership.


Eben Witherspoon (EDUC '19G) Wins Outstanding Doctoral Research Award

March 4, 2021

Eben Witherspoon

Pitt alum Eben B. Witherspoon, currently a Researcher in Education and Instruction at the prestigious American Institutes for Research (AIR), received the NARST 2021 Outstanding Doctoral Research Award. Witherspoon completed his PhD in the School of Education, Learning Sciences and Policy Program (LSAP), in 2019. Witherspoon was also a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) working under the mentorship of Professor of Psychology Christian Schunn.

NARST is a global organization dedicated to improving science teaching and learning through research. Since its inception in 1928, NARST has promoted research in science education and the communication of knowledge generated by the research. The ultimate goal of NARST is to help all learners achieve science literacy. The Outstanding Doctoral Research Award was established in 1992 and is given annually for the Doctoral Dissertation judged to have the greatest merit and significance in the field of Science Education.

Witherspoon's dissertation, "Localizing and Understanding Mechanisms Of Gender Differences Within Pathways Towards And Away From Science Degrees," was also named the Outstanding Alumni Dissertation awarded by the Pitts's School of Education in 2020.

Witherspoon joins two other Pitt doctoral candidates and LRDC scholars as recipients of the NARST Outstanding Doctoral Research Award. In 2017, Anita Schuchardt, (PhD, Psychology, 2016) was a NARST awardee. Schuchardt is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota specializing in mathematical modeling, computational modeling, and biology education. In 2011, Catherine Eberbach, (PhD, Education, 2009) was granted the NARST award. Today, Eberbach advances informal STEM learning as a Program Director in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) at the National Science Foundation.

Read the March 4, 2021 PittWire accolade


LRDC Professors Awarded National Science Foundation Grant for Project on Public Access to Justice

February 24, 2021

Professors Kevin Ashley (Law) and Diane Litman (Computer Science), were awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) award, FAI: Using AI to Increase Fairness by Improving Access to Justice. Part of the NSF Fairness in Artificial Intelligence (FAI), their project works to improve public access to justice. Ashley and Litman are also professors in the Intelligent Systems Program and Senior Scientists at the Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC).

Ashley and Litman's project applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) to increase social fairness by developing two tools to make legal sources more understandable. They will create two tools: Statutory Term Interpretation Support (STATIS) and Case Argument Summarization (CASUM). STATIS is an AI-based legal information retrieval tool that will help users understand and interpret statutory terms. CASUM summarizes case decisions in terms of legal argument triples: the major issues a court addressed in the case, the court's conclusion with respect to each issue, and the court's reasons for reaching the conclusion.

Read the February 24, 2021 Pittwire Accolade


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