I love games, technology, teaching and language learning - and my research lies on the intersection of all of them. In my early academic career, I focused on using Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) to create Deweyan, democratic classrooms, as well as the social network theory (I stumbled upon these topics by chance, but hey, it turned out great!). At one of the GDEX events (GDEX is the largest Mid-West gaming expo) where I worked as a volunteer, I met my future collaborators who were working on Virtual Reality in physics education. That's how I shifted to researching mobile Virtual Reality and visuospatial thinking. I remember how in one of the meetings with Michael, my adviser, I mentioned that my dream was to make a game for my dissertation. Five years later, I presented my own very first serious game at GDEX and made it the basis of my dissertation visuospatial intervention. Now I'm working on understanding serious games from the educational and curricular design perspectives and developing more serious games as a game designer! 

As a linguist by my undergraduate degree and an avid language learner (I speak Russian, English, Spanish and anime Japanese), I am looking to apply my serious games and technology expertise in the field of language teaching and learning, particularly focusing on language learning communities and language learning application design.

I am a doctoral student who is fascinated by academic motivation and learning. My research interests include how students learn, how academic motivation helps students learn, and, as a consequence, how we should teach students. I am passionate about helping students’ learning by improving their academic motivation where teachers, parents, peers, schools, and communities can all make a difference. I received my Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Riverside. Since then, I have become very interested in exploring how students, as active learners, can navigate themselves in social interactions as well as benefit from social support. I would love to use my knowledge and research to help students explore the fun parts of learning and enjoy their learning journey.

I graduated from the Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education in 2016. After teaching elementary school in Columbus, Ohio and Charlottesville, VA, I chose to come back to Ohio State to pursue a master's degree in Educational Psychology. I plan on pursuing a Doctoral degree in this field and am interested in studying the cognition and motivation of elementary-aged students. Specific research interests include socio-cultural learning in diverse communities, epistemic cognition, and critical analytic thinking. I hope to continue working with teachers and students for a long time! In my free time, I enjoy reading, traveling to new places, hiking, and going on long walks with my husband and our large hound dog, Thompson.