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Fifth year Ph.D. student Andrea Cons is the first recipient of the Keith Curry Fellowship. Dr. Curry, a 2011 graduate of the UCI/UCLA Joint Ed.D. in Educational Administration and currently Interim Chief Executive Officer of Compton Community College District, has established a recurring fellowship to honor a doctoral student for his or her unusual commitment and dedication in obtaining a Ph.D. Ms. Cons was selected by the Ph.D. Steering Committee as a student who exemplifies the transformative experience that a doctoral student should evidence. Ms. Cons is specializing in Language, Literacy, and Technology. Her interests include secondary teacher education and academic language development. She has advanced to candidacy for her degree and is finalizing her dissertation under the guidance of her advisor Professor Robin Scarcella. 

Fourth year Ph.D. student Adam Sheppard has been selected as the 2012 Emerging Scholar by the American Educational Research Association Out-of-School Time Special Interest Group. In their congratulatory letter, the Awards Selection Committee wrote: From among an outstanding field of candidates, the committee felt your work showed a great deal of innovation, creativity and high quality. The committee found your work highly relevant and an important contribution to the future of OST research and practice. The nomination materials make clear your potential to have continued impact in the field of Out-of-School Time. The high level of scholarship in your published work especially impressed us. Mr. Sheppard, who is specializing in Educational Policy and Social Context, is completing his dissertation under the guidance of his advisor Professor Joseph Mahoney.

Seccond year Ph.D. student Kreshnik Begolli is presenting a poster at the 2012 American Psychological Science (APS) Convention in Chicago on May 26: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Unloading Working Memory to Facilitate Comparisons. Mr. Begolli is specializing in Learning, Cognition, and Development. His research interests include perceptual learning, language acquistion, and analogical reasoning. Presentation Abstract: Instructional comparisons can overload children’s working memory. Videotaped classroom instruction was manipulated to test a realistic offload for students’ WM: keeping compared mathematical representations visible simultaneously. Experiments showed all students learned transferrable knowledge, with the WM offload providing additional benefits, indicating teachers should use comparisons, supporting them visually when feasible.

Third year Ph.D. student Dan Flynn has been awarded second place in the Best Paper Competition at the recent meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education, Pacific Southwest Section (ASEE PWS), for his paper titled "Baccalaureat Attainment as a Function of Student Engagement: Comparing the Impact of Engagement on Engineering/ICS Degree Attainment to Other Majors at 4-year Institutions." Founded in 1893, the American Society for Engineering Education is a nonprofit organization of individuals and institutions committed to furthering education in engineering and engineering technology. The 2012 ASEE PSW Conference theme was “Engagement, Collaboration and Innovation in Engineering Education.”
Abstract and Photograph

Ph.D. student James Leak has been been nominated to receive a UCI Future of the Field Engagement Award. This award recognizes one graduate student for exemplary leadership in integrating civic and community engagement into their teaching, learning and/or research activities. The award was developed to highlight and celebrate graduate student work that benefits not only UCI but also the larger local, regional, national, and global communities. Award winners will be recognized at the Engage UCI Engagement Awards Luncheon on Thursday May 10, 2012 in the UCI Student Center. Mr. Leak, a fifth year doctoral student specializing in Educational Policy and Social Context, has advanced to candidacy and is completing his dissertation. His research interests include education policy, diversity and equity, and school reform.

Second year Ph.D. student Alma Zaragoza has been accepted into the Graduate Feminist Emphasis of the UC Irvine Women's Study Program, which is dedicated to the study of women, gender, and sexuality in their complex articulations with systems that differentiate races, ethnicities, socio-economic classes, religions. Ms. Zaragoza, a Eugene Robles Scholar, is pursuing research interests in race/ethnicity, gender, class and educational achievement, and higher education access and equity. Her research in the UC Irvine Women's Studies program will complement her Ph.D. in Education focus in Educational Policy and Social Context. Ms. Zaragoza also is a finalist for summer research with the Ed Pioneers of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement on their technology in the classroom initiative. 

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