Learning Sciences & Human Development

Weiying Li

Weiying is a PhD candidate in Learning Sciences and Human Development cluster in the School of Education at UC Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in New Media. Her current research focuses on: 1) designing culturally responsive pedagogy using educational technologies, 2) designing adaptive guidance using natural language processing to help students strengthen their scientific ideas.

Prior to attending UC Berkeley, Weiying received her BS in Applied Psychology from Renmin University of China. She spent the next two years exploring her career possibilities and obtained her MA in...

Michael A. Ranney

Michael Ranney's research explores the nature of explanation and understanding, in both formal and informal domains. His work is intended to foster the incorporation of challenging information (e.g., on global climate change; see the website for HowGlobalWarmingWorks.org). Regarding explanatory coherence, he, his students and his collaborators study and model the nature and utility of reasoning involving both supportive and contradictory relations. They also generate curricula, methods, and artificially intelligent software...

Marcia C. Linn

Marcia C. Linn is Evelyn Lois Corey Professor of Instructional Science, specializing in science and technology in the School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). She has served as...

Sarah W. Freedman

Sarah Warshauer Freedman studies the teaching and learning of written language, as well as ways English is taught in schools. Her research focuses on US schools but also includes cross-national comparisons. Besides studying written language, she is interested in societal divisions that lead to conflict and inequality. She has conducted research on teaching and learning about civics and has studied how adolescents on varied sides of societal divides develop as citizens and civic actors. Her work on societal divides has included research on the role of education in reconstructing societies...

Elliot Turiel

Elliot Turiel teaches courses on human development and its relation to education. He holds the Jerome A. Hutto Chair in the School of Education, and is an affiliated professor in the Department of Psychology. He has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs ad Interim Dean in the School of Education. He has served as president of the Jean Piaget Society. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a National Institute of Mental Health Fellow, and is a member of the National Academy of Education. In 2021 he recieved the Distinguished Contributions to Developemental Science Award, from the Jean...

Laura Sterponi

Merging my graduate degree training in developmental psychology (PhD, 2002) and in applied linguistics (PhD, 2004), I have developed a research program that is centrally concerned with the role of language and literacy practices in children’s development and education.

As a developmental psychologist, I have always been interested in discerning the sociocultural underpinnings of learning processes. The cognitive capabilities that our neurological apparatus enables us as human beings to attain do not pre-exist and are never abstracted from the social practices in which they develop...

Tesha Sengupta-Irving (She/Hers)

Associate Professor, Learning Sciences & STEM Education Affiliate Associate Professor, UCB Center for Race & Gender

Research

Dr. Sengupta-Irving’s research explores the sociocultural, disciplinary, and political dimensions of children’s mathematics learning. Broadly, her work asks a deceptively simple question: What, in addition to mathematics, do children learn when they learn mathematics? Dr. Sengupta-Irving works closely with teachers to understand and design pedagogical approaches that promote...

Dor Abrahamson

Dor Abrahamson researches mathematics learning and teaching. He develops and evaluates theoretical models of these processes by analyzing empirical data collected during implementations of his innovative pedagogical design. Drawing on embodiment and sociocultural paradigms, Abrahamson is particularly interested in modeling how learners coordinate between intuitive and formal views on situated phenomena and what roles teachers play in ushering these coordinations. Abrahamson’s analyses of pedagogical interactions focus on student and...

Xinyu (Celia) Wei

Xinyu (Celia) Wei is a second-year Master’s student in the Learning Sciences and Human Development program at the School of Education at UC Berkeley. As an international scholar from China, Xinyu desires to help students celebrate productive struggles, leverage everyday experiences, and develop intellectual and sociocritical thinking skills to tackle worldwide equity barriers within STEM education. Her mission guides her as an emergent researcher who works with classroom teachers and students to design and implement meaningful and culturally grounded mathematics and science...

Meg Everett

Meg Everett is a Regent’s Fellow and doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Human Development program with a Designated Emphasis in New Media. Her research interests include critical media literacy, participatory technologies, computer-mediated learning and communication, and the intersection of schools and social media.

She has received the Learning Sciences Certificate in Instructional Design, Learning Technologies, and Education Research and as member of the project team Online@BSE, she is currently exploring innovative approaches to higher education. The team...