Our Team

Fernando (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the School of Education. His work utilizes clickstream data to better understand student learning behaviors in STEM courses. Another line of his research examines how students think critically when encountering everyday sources of evidence. Fernando is also the Co-Director the IES-funded training grant, Career Pathways for Research in Learning and Education, Analytics and Data Science (CP-LEADS). You can learn more about his work here.
Dr. Fernando Rodriguez
Director, ACE Lab
Co-Director, CP-LEADS

Joseph (he/him) is a doctoral student in the School of Education and co-directs the ACE Lab. He is interested in misinformation and media literacy research. Specifically, he examines epistemological thinking, media literacy skills, and how people understand and interact with news they read online and on social media. He is currently using eye-tracking methods to uncover how students attentional gaze is influenced by alluring social media posts. You can read more about his work here.
Joseph Aubele
Co-Director, ACE Lab
Doctoral Student

Waverly Tseng (she/her) is a doctoral student in the School of Education. She is interested in writing education research, specifically focused on motivation and instructional practices. She is currently investigating undergraduate student engagement with digital writing resources in disciplinary courses through looking at clickstream data.
Waverly Tseng
Doctoral Student

James (he/him) is an undergraduate Education major at UCI, as well as a Chicano/Latino Studies and Bilingual Education minor. His main interest is in studying how the educational experiences of Latino students contribute to their success in post-secondary education, as well as ways to improve their presence in college education. He is an undergraduate Research Assistant with the ACE Lab working on investigating how affective headlines can influence how people react to information.
James Penaloza-Martinez
Research Assistant

Haoyi (Sean) Wang (he/him) is a Cognitive Science major at UCI. His main interest is in studying how attention is correlated with brain activity and study behavior. He is an undergraduate Research Assistant with the ACE Lab working on investigating intercorrelations between attention allocating, mind wandering, and distractibility in the context of studying.
Haoyi (Sean) Wang
Research Assistant

Wendy (she/her) is an undergraduate student at UCI double majoring in Education Sciences and Psychological Science. Her main interest is studying how children and adolescents are influenced by various forms of digital media, as well as the impact it has on their development and cognitive abilities pertaining to comprehending and evaluating information. She is an undergraduate Research Assistant with the ACE Lab working on investigating how affective headlines can influence how people react to information.
Wendy Wu
Research Assistant
Lab Alumn

Dr. Hye Rin Lee (she/her) is an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Delaware. She received her PhD in 2022 from the School of Education at UC Irvine. Her research interests broadly focuses on academic motivation in school settings where she considers the intersections of STEM education, media technologies, and higher education. Dr. Lee still collaborates on several research projects and books for learning R. You can read more about her work here.
Dr. Hye Rin Lee
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Delaware

Garbo (she/her) is an Education and Public Health Policy double major graduate from UCI. Her main interest is examining the implications of how young adults evaluate information in popular media and the way they shape learning for the educational and health setting.
Garbo Gong
Research Specialist