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 Sciences major and 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
Brandon Royal (He/Him) is an undergraduate Education Sciences major and a CP-LEADS Fellow. He is interested in looking at student behavior and motivation. He is currently working on a project examining undergraduate student engagement with digital writing resources.
Brandon Royal
Research Assistant &
CP-LEADS Fellow
Chelsea (she/her) is an undergraduate education sciences and psychology sciences major with a minor in political sciences and a CP-LEADS fellow. Her main interest is understanding teacher retention, specifically interested in improving the educator experience to reduce this retention. She is currently working on investigating undergraduate engagement and perception with digital writing resources.
Chelsea Sanchez
Research Assistant &
CP-LEADS Fellow
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 behaviors. 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
Xiangqian (she/her) is an undergraduate student majoring in Education Sciences and
Psychological Science at UCI. Her main study interest is in cross-cultural education and the role of
education in promoting intercultural understanding. She is an undergraduate Research Assistant with the ACE Lab working on exploring college students’ cosmopolitanism.
Xiangqian Yu
Research Assistant
Jing (she/her) is an undergraduate student majoring in Psychology and Education Sciences at UCI. Her main interest is studying the language competence of bilingual students. Under the mentorship of Dr. Rodriguez and Dr. Elizabeth Pena (Professor of Education), Jing is investigating the effects of language programs on language exposure and competence.
Jing Zhang
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 Sciences 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