Maddie Alexanian is a doctoral student in the School Psychology area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She received her BA in Psychology and Spanish with a minor in Education from Wake Forest University. Before beginning her studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Maddie worked as an English teaching assistant in Galicia, Spain through the Fulbright Student Program. There, she implemented curriculum-based measures of writing progress with her students. Advised by Dr. David Klingbeil, Maddie’s research interests include literacy development and evidence-based reading assessment and interventions. Specifically, she is interested in best practices for meeting the unique needs of linguistically diverse students.
Student
Ash, Tory
Tory Ash is a doctoral student in the School Psychology area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Tory received her BA in Psychology and Philosophy from UW–Madison and her MS in Psychology from Syracuse University. Prior to graduate school, Tory worked as a lab manager studying prejudice reduction interventions for adults, parents, children, and teachers. Tory is advised by Dr. Andy Garbacz. Broadly, her research interests include developing, implementing, and evaluating school-wide interventions and supports aimed at promoting greater equity in educational outcomes
Barnett, Kierin
Kierin Barnett is a doctoral student in the School Psychology area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is advised by Dr. Katie Eklund. Kierin received her BA in Psychology and Sociology from UW-Madison. Prior to graduate school, Kierin worked as a Research Specialist studying prejudice reduction interventions for adults, parents, and children as well as interventions designed to facilitate positive intergroup relations among children. Her current research interests center on supporting student mental health in schools. Specifically, Kierin is interested in promoting positive outcomes for students with internalizing and externalizing concerns using culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions.
Barron, Kaycie
Kaycie Barron is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences area within the Department of Educational Psychology. In The Responsible AI for Learning (TRAIL) Lab, she focuses on advancing equitable outcomes for bi/multilingual learners and promoting human-centered AI applications in K-12 education. Her research explores linguistic biases in large language models and how translanguaging and language variation affect model performance. She also collaborates with educators across the state to bridge AI tools with real-world classroom practices.
Bednarek, Gina
Gina Bednarek is a doctoral student in the School Psychology area within the Department of Educational Psychology and is advised by Dr. Andy Garbacz. She earned her BS in Psychology from UW-Madison and after graduation worked as a Research Specialist at the HealthEmotions Research Institute investigating childhood anxiety disorders. Gina currently collaborates with Dr. Garbacz to assist different state and community organizations with their goals surrounding family-school-community partnerships. Her research interests include learning how we can improve child and adolescent social-emotional assessment practices to better support families, schools, and clinicians.
Beier, Joel
Joel Beier is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences area within the Department of Educational Psychology and is a member of the Learning Representations and Technology Lab with Dr. Martina Rau. His research interests include understanding the ways that we communicate with and about visual representations in scientific contexts.
Bowen, Anne
Anne Bowen is a doctoral student in the School Psychology area within the Department of Educational Psychology and advised by Andy Garbacz. They received their BS in Psychology and Ecology & Biodiversity from the University of Denver. Prior to graduate school, Anne was a clinical research coordinator at Children’s Hospital Colorado, where they managed a school-based mental health prevention program and adolescent health behavior studies. Anne’s current research interests center on leveraging implementation science to develop, optimize, test, and scale evidence-based behavioral interventions to improve child and family health outcomes and reduce disparities.
Buhrman, Graham
Graham Buhrman is a doctoral student in the Quantitative Methods area within the Department of Educational Psychology. He is advised by Dr(s). Jee-Seon Kim and James Pustejovsky. His research interests include causal inference, hierarchical data analysis, heterogeneous treatment effect estimation and characterization, and machine learning.
Cang, Xuesong
Xuesong Cang is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her main interests including distributed scaffolding and classroom orchestration by utilizing/integrating technology (simulation or collaborative platform/interface) in middle/high school classroom teaching and learning, especially for biology or physic subjects.
Chen, Keding
Keding Chen is a doctoral student in the Quantitative Methods area within the Department of Educational Psychology. He is studying with Dr. James Wollack. His research interests include test security, item response theory, multi-dimensional modeling. Keding Chen is currently working as a project assistant at the UW Testing and Evaluation Center.