Nayssan Safavian
Ph.D. Student
Department of Education
Email: nsafavia@uci.edu
Biography
Nayssan Safavian is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at UC Irvine with an emphasis in the Learning, Cognition, and Development (LCD) specialization. She is particularly interested in the area of motivational development in education across cultures as well as adolescent psycho-social and emotional well being. Her current research interest lies in understanding the various facets of motivational behavior (Why we do what we do? Questions that we ask ourselves such as "Can I do it and Is it worth it?") and more specifically achievement related beliefs and values. Currently, Nayssan works as a graduate student researcher under the supervision of Dr. AnneMarie Conley studying achievement motivation in adolescents and teachers and also serves as the project manager for CAMP (California Motivation Research Project). Nayssan will also be teaching the undergraduate Adolescent Development in Education course the spring of this year.
Prior to attending UC Irvine, Nayssan attended UCLA as an undergraduate where she founded the Undergraduate Psychology Society where she served as president and guest lecturer as well as organized undergraduate departmental research fairs and faculty lectures. Additionally, for two years she worked with both the School Mental Health Project and Daily Life Study Project as a research assistant. Nayssan graduated from UCLA with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology in 2004. After graduation, she accepted a summer position as a resident counselor for the American Ballet Theater Orange County Summer Intensive Program. The program exclusively prepared pre-professional young artists both technically and mentally for a transition into a professional career. She is excited about the UCI Center for Learning through the Arts since she hopes will play an instrumental role in exploring and developing her research interests with respect to learning and the arts.
In the past, she served as co-chair of the Department of Education's first PhD Cohort Recruitment Weekend. Her additional commitments include serving as the incoming president to the UCLA Alumni Chapter of Orange County, serving as a district chair for Orange County UCLA Alumni Freshman Scholarships, and acting as an undergraduate mentor to UCLA Alumni scholars and a graduate mentor to UC Irvine Summer Research Program fellows.
Presentations
Safavian, N., & Conley, A. (Accepted). Understanding teacher expectancy and value to teach mathematics. Paper submitted at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association Conference. Washington D.C.
Conley, A., Rutherford, T., Sheppard, A., Safavian, N., & Albarran, A. S. (2010, April). A social network analysis of teachers’ professional learning communities. Paper submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association Conference. New Orleans, LA.
Safavian, N., & Conley, A. (2010, April). Middle school expectancy for success and task values as predictors of short and long term achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association Conference. Denver, CO.
Safavian, N. (2010, February). Motivational predictors of math achievement in early adolescence. Poster presented at the 2010 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) “Early Childhood Through Higher Education” Summit at the University of California, Irvine.
Safavian, N. (2009, November). Predictors of math achievement. Poster presented at “School Crisis in California: How Can We Reshape Our Children’s Future?” UC Irvine’s Department of Education Foundation presentation and panel discussion.
Safavian, N. & Conley, A. (2009, April). Ethnic identity and academic efficacy in Black and White middle school students. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association Conference. San Diego, CA.