People

Core Faculty

Dr. Firat Soylu - Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology
Email: fsoylu@ua.edu - Office: Barnes 1038 - Research Lab: ELDEN Lab, Barnes 1051
Research Interests: Educational & cognitive neuroscience, mathematical cognition, STEM learning, embodied cognition, EEG/ERP, fMRI
Education/Professional Background:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, 2011-2014
Ph.D., Cognitive Science & Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2011

Dr. Hyemin Han - Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology
Email: hyemin.han@ua.edu - Office: Capital Hall 1615 - Research Lab: SEED Lab, Barnes 1020
Research Interests: Educational neuroscience, social neuroscience, social development, positive psychology, computational simulations, educational interventions
Education/Professional Background:
Ph.D., Developmental and Psychological Sciences, Stanford University, 2016

Dr. Laura Morett - Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology
Email: lmorett@ua.edu - Office: Capital Hall 1617 - Research Lab: NERD Lab, Capital Hall 1630
Research Interests: Educational neuroscience and psychology, learning sciences, cognitive development, autism spectrum disorder, bilingualism, embodied cognition
Education/Professional Background:
Postdoctoral Associate, Child Study Center, Yale University, 2016 - 2017
Postdoctoral Fellow, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, 2013-2016
Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2012

Dr. Macarena Suarez Pellicioni - Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology (to start in January, 2020)
Email: suarez.pellic@vanderbilt.edu - Office: TBD
Research Interests: Educational neuroscience, mathematical cognition, child development, learning, fMRI, ERPs
Education/Professional Background:
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brain Development Lab, Vanderbilt University, 2017 - 2020
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brain Development Lab, University of Texas at Austin, 2015 - 2017
Ph.D., Psychology, University of Barcelona, Spain, 2014

Affliated Faculty

Dr. Jason Scofield - Associate Professor, Human Development & Family Studies
Email: scofield@ua.edu - Office: 209 Child Development Research Center - Research Lab: 233 Child Development Research Center
Research Interests: Child development, cognitive development, language development
Education/Professional Background:
PhD, University of Arkansas, 2003, Psychology

Dr. Rick A. Houser - Professor Emeritus, Counselor Education
Email: rhouser@ua.edu
Research Interests: Ethical decision making, use of virtual reality in education, neuropsychological processes in learning situations
Education/Professional Background:
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1987, Rehabilitation Counseling with a minor in Educational Research

Dr. Stephen Thoma - Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology
Email: sthoma@ua.edu
Research Interests: Moral judgement development, personality and social development, neuropsychology of moral reasoning and decision making
Education/Professional Background:
Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Personality and Social development/Measurement and Statistics—Educational Psychology, 1986

Graduate Students

Brian Rivera
Brian graduated from Franklin and Marshall college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a degree in Scientific and Philosophical Studies of the Mind. After working for two years recruiting students to attend F&M, he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he worked as a research assistant at the Cognition and Action Lab in the Psychological and Brain Sciences department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In August 2016, he joined the Educational Neuroscience PhD concentration in University of Alabama’s Education Psychology department. He is part of the ELDEN lab where he works under Firat Soylu. Brian's research interests include numerical cognition, STEM learning, embodied cognition, fraction learning, and computational thinking. You can learn more about Brian and his research here.

Nan Mu
Nan Mu is a Ph.D. student in Educational Psychology at University of Alabama. For over a decade before joining the program at UA, she taught English at the university level, working with Chinese undergraduate students to improve their spoken and written English. Nan received her BA in Applied Linguistics from Northeast Normal University, China. Her current research interests include second language acquisition, cognition, and quantitative research methods.

Nathaniel Shannon
Nate is a graduate student in the Educational Neuroscience Concentration of the Educational Psychology program at the University of Alabama. His work currently focuses on bilingual encoding and retrieval processes. Specifically, he is investigating the language switching costs that arise when the language of learning may not match the language of retrieval, and vice versa.

Kelsie Dawson
Kelsie is a 3rd year graduate student in the Educational Neuroscience Concentration of the Educational Psychology program at the University of Alabama. She works with Dr. Hyemin Han at the SEED lab conducting research at the intersection of social and moral development.

Mona Anchan
Mona Anchan is a PhD student in the Educational Neuroscience concentration of The University of Alabama's Educational Psychology program. Having been a cellular/molecular neuroscience researcher as well as a math/science high school teacher in the past, Mona is very interested in developing more accessible ways of communicating scientific research to non-scientists, as well as working with educators to develop research addressing educational and instructional needs. In the program, Mona's focus is on numerical and mathematical processing in monolinguals vs. bilinguals/polyglots. Mona is interested in studying how encoding and retrieval processes differ between these populations, and the degree to which these processes are age- and context-dependent in their mappings. She is studying these processes under the guidance of Dr. Firat Soylu (ELDEN Lab) and Dr. Lisa Hsin (ECS Lab).

Corinne Ku
Corinne is second year doctoral student in Educational Psychology/Neuroscience at the University of Alabama. Her research interest is to explore a variety of cognitive advantages of bilingualism (e.g. executive function). She is broadly interested in neurolinguistics of bilingualism. Currently, Corinne is studying growth mindset in sequential bilinguals and its implications for language education. Corinne earned her B.A. in English language and literature from National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan. Corinne also received a master’s degree in Foreign and Second Language Education from the Ohio State University.

Kaitlyn May
Kaitlyn is a second-year graduate student in the Educational Neuroscience program at the University of Alabama. Her current research interests include pediatric language disorders, multiligualism, neurolinguistics, and neuroatypical populations. Prior to coming to Alabama, Kaitlyn studied Pediatric Neurolinguistics at Christ Church College, University of Oxford. Her previous research includes the impact of media multitasking in relation to cognition and socioemotional well-being; relationships between multitasking and language learning; relationships between second language acquisition and music; and sexism, gender, and rape myth acceptance on college campuses.

Yi Chen
Yi is a Ph.D. student in the Educational Neuroscience division of Educational Psychology program at the University of Alabama. She has a BS in psychology from the Beijing Sport University. Cognitive neuroscience has been at the center of her attention, especially visual cognition and representation of abstract concepts. She is highly interested in developing her ERP & EEG research skills.

Jake Feiler
Jake received a master’s degree in anatomy from the University of Colorado School of Medicine prior to coming to UA. His research utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging to study severe worry in adolescents. Specifically, he looked at how worry might impact behavioral inhibition and threat vigilance. While at UA, Jake is interested in examining how neuroscience can be utilized to understand why some students find challenges in learning science and math and how this information might lead to innovative student interventions. Jake is currently in the NERD Lab, where he works with Dr. Laura Morett examining how gesture contributes to improved non-native language learning by utilizing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In his free time, Jake likes to ski back home in Colorado and spend time with family and friends.

Paria Yaghoubi
Originally from Iran, Paria has spent time in Sweden and Germany studying computer science and cognitive sciences respectively. Currently enrolled as a doctoral student in the department of Educational Psychology, Paria's interests include the cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotion in general and empathy in particular. Paria's current research investigates the co-influence of human past experiences and culture on emphatic concerns of human beings as well as the factors impacting empathy development through the life span. So far, Paria has conducted two behavioral studies and just started an EEG study to find out the underlying mechanisms of such kinds of emotions and feelings.

Cailee Nelson
Cailee is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Educational Neuroscience concentration of the Educational Psychology program and is excited to be a part of the University of Alabama community. Roll Tide! Her research interests revolve around learning and motivation and the neural correlates that are involved in special populations. Specifically, she is interested in investigating children with autism and the neural mechanisms involved in their learning process. Outside of research, Cailee loves to spend time with friends and family, drink coffee, play volleyball and, of course, catch up on her Netflix shows when time allows.

Sarah Hughes
Sarah is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Educational Neuroscience concentration of the Educational Psychology program. Her interests, though somewhat broad at the moment, include utilizing neuroimaging to study the brain structure and function of children with reading disabilities. She is hopeful that further investigation of these brain patterns will be helpful in constructing effective intervention strategies for struggling readers.

Jongjin Kim
Jongjin (JJ) is a first-year graduate student in the Educational Neuroscience concentration of the Educational Psychology program at the University of Alabama. Having been a high school math teacher in Korea, he found a number of students struggling with math anxiety despite their high performance. He is, therefore, interested in promoting student motivation in math courses, alleviating math anxiety among students, and designing conducive learning environments. His work currently focuses on analyzing EEG data of bilinguals as well as collecting behavioral and neural data from dynamic contextual environments. His research interests include educational neuroscience, numerical cognition, and constructionism.

Yeeun (Rachel) Choi
Yeeun (Rachel) is a member of the SEED Lab and her research interests include moral and character development, meaning in life, and psychological well-being among workers. She wants to study morality and human development in general so that she can help people to grow their inner power such as coping skills, psychological resources, and mindsets. She wants to faciliate others' development by saying "you have full potentials!". She enjoys the life at the University of Alabama, taking a riverwalk at sunrise and sunset, talking with her friends, and mostly spending valuable time with her family. She is also grateful for learning 'R program' to do statistical analyses like Bayesian and SEM.