People

YJ Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her research and teaching revolve around realizing Professor Edmond Gordon’s vision of equitable learning and assessment. YJ employs playfulness as a lens to design assessment tools and incorporate democratic design practices into assessment development. YJ employs various methodologies such as evidence-centered design, design-based research, learning analytics, and quantitative ethnography to craft assessments that promote equity, while also meeting the conventional standards of rigor and surpassing them.

Gyeongri Kim is a first-year PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests lie in playful learning and assessment. Having worked as an elementary school teacher in South Korea, she focuses on designing learning experiences that are practical in classrooms, benefiting both students and educators alike. Furthermore, she explores how technology can contribute to creating an equitable and safe learning environment that fosters a growth mindset. Gyeongri’s previous work includes investigating the academic performance of multicultural students, making data visualizations accessible to blind and low vision students, and analyzing AI curriculum co-design.

Mariah A. Knowles meets with researchers across disciplines at UW-Madison and in the local community, providing training and consultation on multidisciplinary research. She has a background in Information, English, and Computer Sciences. Her research is mixed methods, focusing on data ethics, education, and quantitative ethnography, and she uses data science to boost important social science work, such as telling stories of transgender experiences.

Luis Felipe Martinez-Gomez is a Colombian teacher, economist, and second year doctoral student at the DICE department. His work and interest is centered around making all learning experiences, particularly socio-emotional ones, more playful, fair, and engaging for all learners to be able to shine and show their assets and strengths. Felipe has always been concerned with issues of justice and equity and hopes that his work will support Latinx population in the USA. 

Jenn Scianna is a PhD Candidate in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at UW Madison. Her work is influenced by her time as a middle and high school science teacher implementing personalized, project-based learning experiences for students. Jenn is an active member of the Quantitative Ethnography community using this approach to understanding student behaviors in educational games and playful curriculum.