Postdoctoral Research Associates
Vesal Dini
Dr. Vesal Dini was a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Sevian in the Chemistry Department at UMass Boston from 2016-2018. In December 2016, he successfully defended his PhD in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Tufts University. In his doctoral work, he studied the learning and teaching of science, mainly physics, and is particularly interested in how people approach their learning. He pursued two areas of research: the first involves his dissertation work about whether and how students seek coherence in their knowledge as they learn quantum mechanics; the second involves study of dynamics in responsive teaching (that is, instructor attention to, interpretation of and response to the substance of students’ thinking). Vesal worked with Dr. Sevian to better understand how teacher practices in formative assessment can support students approaching chemistry as the pursuit of coherent understanding. Dr. Dini is now an instructor of general physics at Tufts University.
Dr. Ira Caspari is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sevian group who is working on the Assessment Practices of STEM Teachers project. Ira completed her PhD in chemistry, with specialization in chemistry education, in October 2018 from the Institute of Chemistry Education at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Nicole Graulich at the Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen, Ira's doctoral research was about mechanistic reasoning in organic chemistry. She visited the Sevian Research Group in June and July, 2016, and returned occasionally for briefer visits to continue collaboration. When visiting the Sevian Research Group she worked on developing an approach to analyzing students’ reasoning about organic chemical mechanisms together with Dr. Melissa Weinrich. Before she started her doctoral project, Ira completed her first state examination in Biology and Chemistry Education at Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz and worked as a Pre-Service Teacher at Gymnasium Philippinum in Weilburg.
Dr. Stephanie Murray was a postdoctoral researcher in the Sevian group from August 2018 to December 2019. She graduated from Stonehill College in Easton, MA with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2013. She then moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and began her doctoral research in organic chemistry under the direction of Dr. Simon J. Meek. While at UNC, she conducted research on the development of new catalytic methods utilizing a-boryl organometallics and successfully defended her PhD in June 2018. During graduate school, she fully realized her passion for teaching and improving STEM education so she decided to transition into the field of chemistry education research, and joined the Sevian group to conduct research on the ACCT project. She also taught in the chemistry department while at UMass Boston. Dr. Murray is now an assistant professor of chemistry at Brandeis University.
Marilyne Stains
 Dr. Marilyne Stains was a postdoc in our group in Chemistry from 2008-2011. She earned her Ph.D. in chemical education from the University of Arizona in 2007. In her thesis work she explored how students' patterns of reasoning in chemistry evolve with increasing expertise in the field. Three publications of the results of these studies (linked following) were published in JRST, IJSE(+ erratum), and JCE. While pursuing her Ph.D., she also taught general chemistry courses at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Prior to her Ph.D. she completed her Master's degree in quantum chemistry at the Universite de Toulouse (France) in 2002. While at UMass Boston, she worked with the Boston Science Partnership articulation team study on understanding the development of students' conceptualizations of scientific models. She also worked on reliability tests on a survey designed to measure students' critical thinking abilities in science (on this project she collaborated with Prof. Brian White of the Biology department at UMass Boston). Dr. Stains is now an Associate Professor in the Chemistry Department at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. < Prof. Stains research group website>
Gabriela Szteinberg
Dr. Gabriela (Gaby) Szteinberg was a postdoc in Dr. Sevian's group from 2012-2014. She received her BA from Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) where she majored in Chemistry and minored in Linguistics. After discovering her passion for education, Gaby attended Purdue University where she obtained a PhD in Chemistry Education in 2012 as a student in Gabriela Weaver's research group. Gaby's dissertation project was on the mixed-methods' longitudinal assessment of the Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education ( www.caspie.org). In her postdoctoral research, Gaby helped to develop and validate a learning progression in chemical design, as well as other projects. Gaby is interested in research that aids in closing cultural gaps that exist in science education, as well as disseminating chemical education research practices to other countries. Dr. Szteinberg is now working in the Chemistry Department at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.
Melissa Weinrich
Dr. Melissa Weinrich was a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Sevian in the Chemistry Department at UMass Boston from 2015 to 2017. In 2009, she graduated from Reed College with a bachelor of arts in chemistry. Her undergraduate and early graduate training focused on synthetic organic chemistry. In December 2014 she earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Arizona. In her graduate research she focused on characterizing students’ ways of conceptualizing and reasoning about chemical synthesis and understanding how this thinking evolves with training in the discipline. In the Sevian group, her research focused on characterizing the abstraction employed by students when solving problems in several courses in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum and identifying whether and where an abstraction threshold, or a gap between students’ abstraction capacity and the abstraction demanded by problems in the course, exists in the chemistry curriculum. Dr. Weinrich is now an assistant professor of chemistry at University of Northern Colorado. < curriculum vitae>
Shiqi Hao
Dr. Shiqi Hao was a postdoc at the Center of Science and Math i n Context from 2006-9. He received his B.A. in English Language and Literature from Hebei University in China in 1982. He obtained an M.S.E degree in secondary education from the College of Staten Island, CUNY in 1988. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Research from the University of South Carolina in 2005. While at UMass Boston, he worked on the STEM pipeline research project. He presented his research most recently atAERA. Dr. Hao is now a psychometrician and statistician at the Michigan State Department of Education.
Soma Chattopadhyay
 Dr. Soma Chattopadhyay was a postdoc in our group in Chemistry from 2006-8. She taught physical chemistry at UMass Boston in Fall, 2006. She earned her PhD. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006. Her thesis research involved fabrication of porous light-emitting silicon, spectroscopy and surface analytical characterization, and application of the material in chemical sensing. Prior to that, she completed her undergraduate education in India, earning a B.Tech. in chemical technology and a B.Sc. in chemistry from Calcutta University. While at UMass Boston, she worked on ruthenium light emitting thin films projects. Dr. Chattopadhyay is now an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at University of Wisconsin-Platteville. < Prof. Chattopadhyay's website at UW-Platteville>
Allison Skerrett
 Dr. Allison Skerrett was a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Center of Science and Math in Context from 2006-2007. Dr. Skerrett is now an Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from Boston College in 2007. Prior to that, she was an English teacher at Dorchester High School in Boston. She worked on the STEM-K12 outreach faculty motivation study. < Prof. Skerrett's website at UT Austin>
Visiting Professors
Orlando Aguiar, Jr.
Dr. Orlando Aguiar is a visiting professor and researcher working with Dr. Sevian in the Chemistry Department at UMass Boston from July 2017 to February 2018. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education of Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, since 1997, where he develops studies in teaching and learning science, mainly physics. His main research interests are the formation of scientific concepts; language and cognition; discursive dynamics in science classrooms; quality of teachers’ questions and feedback; students’ questioning in science classes; development and evaluation of teaching sequences informed by research. At UMass Boston, in collaboration with Dr. Sevian, he is developing studies related to teaching and learning of energy concepts inspired in the Theory of Conceptual Profile. Dr. Aguiar’s visit is part of a larger collaboration related to the Theory of Conceptual Profile, in which both Drs. Aguiar and Sevian are working with Prof. Eduardo Mortimer, who is also a professor at UFMG in Brazil. Dr. Aguiar was editor of a Brazilian journal - Ensaio Research in Science Education (2013-2017), secretary for teaching issues in the Brazilian Physics Society (2015-2017), and vice director of the Faculty of Education (2006-2010).
Edenia AmaralEdenia Maria Ribeiro do Amaral is an associate professor of Chemistry Education in the Department of Chemistry at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Brazil. Also, she is a faculty member of the Science Education Postgraduate Program, in which she conducts research on conceptual profiles, the conceptualization process, and discursive interactions, activities and actions in science classrooms, and she supervises master’s and doctoral students. Dr. Amaral has developed research and teaching projects involving science/chemistry teachers in discussions around professional development, teaching and learning sequences, practical work in schools, and science curricula. From January to June, 2019, she will join the Sevian research team to bring a specific focus on activity theory and conceptual profiles.
Visiting Scientists
Sascha Bernholt
Dr. Sascha Bernholt is a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry education at IPN-Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Christian Aubrechts University, in Kiel, Germany. He worked as a visiting scientist in Dr. Sevian's group for two months, February-March, 2014. Sascha received his PhD in chemistry education in 2010 from University of Oldenberg, Germany. His research interests include modeling competencies in chemistry, students' conceptual understanding, language, formulae and terminology in chemistry, development and characteristics of tasks, educational neuroscience, video-based research of teaching and learning processes, and eye tracking. While at UMass Boston, Dr. Bernholt worked with our group on the abstraction threshold project, and provided scientific advice on eye tracking studies of chemistry problem solving in our group.
Prajakt Pande
Prajakt Pande was a visiting scientist in our group while he was a PhD student at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India. He is now a postdoc at Roskilde University in Denmark. He is interested in understanding the cognitive mechanisms that support learning, particularly learning with and through multiple representations in chemistry (such as equations, graphs, molecular diagrams, animations, simulations, phenomenological experiences, observations, etc.) He uses eye-tracking to characterize representational competence (the ability to simultaneously process and integrate multiple representations) in chemistry. Prajakt is also involved in the design, development and testing of fully manipulable new-media interfaces (e.g. gesture based Kinect sensors, leap motion) as pedagogical interventions to enhance science learning. The interface designs are based on findings and suggestions from the embodied and distributed cognition approaches to learning ( see link). As a visiting scientist in our group during Summer 2015, he was involved in a mini-project aimed to identify chemistry graduate students' assumptions about reaction-mechanisms/chemical-processes (such as deterministic-probabilistic), and their relationship with participants' eye-gaze patterns. This project also attempts to understand how chemistry graduate students imagine/generate dynamics out of static molecular representations. Prajakt likes to travel, cook, sing and listen to music. He also delights in playing table tennis and badminton.
Dr. Deirdre Hugi-Cleary spent a sabbatical in the Sevian Research Group, during March to May, 2016. She was on sabbatical leave from her high-school teaching position at Gymnase Français de Bienne, Switzerland. Her education includes a B.Sc.(hons) in chemistry from the National University of Ireland, Galway; a Ph.D. in 1984 in inorganic chemistry from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and an M.Sc. in 2003 in statistics from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Dr. Hugi-Cleary's research career also includes post-doctoral work in NMR at the University of California, Berkeley and at the University of Lausanne, followed by about twenty years of research and lecturing in inorganic and physical chemistry at the University of Neuchâtel. In 2007, Deirdre started high-school teaching and in 2010 obtained an MAS in secondary and higher education from the Haute Ecole Pédagogique of Western Switzerland. She currently teaches introductory and advanced chemistry. While with the Sevian Research Group, Dr. Hugi-Cleary worked with data collected using the SAMM survey.
Graduate Students
Kristen Cacciatore
 Kristen Cacciatore began her Ph.D. work in Green Chemistry in 2005, and completed her Ph.D. in 2010. In September, 2007, she accepted a job as a chemistry teacher at East Boston High School in Boston while she continued her Ph.D. studies. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she taught chemistry at Dedham High School for five years. She earned her M.Ed. in teacher education at UMass Boston in 2004, and a B.S. in biology from UMass Boston in 1999. While at UMass Boston, Dr. Cacciatore studied chemistry laboratory learning and the development of green inquiry labs. She was also a contributing author to Active Chemistry. She authored several papers (see Publications) and presented about her research at the Gordon Research Conference on Chemistry Education Research & Practice, the American Chemical Society, the AP Equity Conference, the national conference of the National Science Teachers Association, and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. She continues to lead the Boston Science Partnership designed AP Chemistry Saturday labs for Boston Public Schools students during the year at UMass Boston. She was honored with the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence in 2008.
Steven Cullipher graduated from the UMass Boston Green Chemistry Ph.D. program in May 2015, where he was a student of Dr. Sevian. Steven's PhD thesis can be found here: < Cullipher PhD thesis>. He previously completed a B.A. in chemistry at Florida Gulf Coast University in 2007, and an M.S. in environmental science at the same university in 2009. In September 2015, Dr. Cullipher began a position as an assistant professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. < curriculum vitae, publications>
Courtney Ngai
Courtney Ngai began her Ph.D. studies in 2012 in the Biological Chemistry track of the Ph.D. program in the Chemistry Department, and she completed her doctorate in May 2017. She completed her B.S. in biochemistry at University of Delaware in 2011, and interned at Agilent Technologies in Delaware during 2011-12. Courtney was awarded UMass Boston's Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship for 2012-17. Courtney is now a postdoctoral research associate at Colorado State University. < curriculum vitae>
Tirzah Deering
 Tirzah Deering was an M.Ed. student who earned licensure in middle school science & math teacher education. She earned a B.A. in psychology, with a minor in educational studies, from Haverford College in 2004 and also spent considerable time assisting and teaching in the Philadelphia Public Schools. While at UMass Boston, she worked on a study of science teacher content knowledge retention post-professional development. She has taught middle school science in Boston Public Schools and mathematics a middle school in Malden. She presented about her research in January 2008 at the Knowledge Management and Dissemination Conference as part of the NSF Math Science Partnership Learning Network Conference.
Sally Rosen
Sally Rosen completed her M.Ed. with licensure in high school biology in 2004. She was Dr. Sevian's first graduate student. She is now a biology teacher at Newton North High School.
Emma Vélez ÁvilaEmma was in the MS Chemistry program at UMass Boston during 2018-19. While in the Sevian research group, she worked on developing a green organic chemistry alternative lab using NMR techniques. Emma is from Puerto Rico, and prior to joining UMass Boston, she completed her BS in chemistry in May 2017 at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico in San Germán. During 2017-18, she worked at the USDA Tropical Agriculture Research Service in Mayagües, PR, conducting soil sample analyses.
Hung Nguyen started as a PhD student in Fall, 2019, and was a member of the Sevian group during 2019-20. Hung was born in Da Lat, a small highland city in Vietnam, and graduated from the VNU-HCM University of Science in Vietnam in 2017. During his time in Vietnam, he conducted research in computational chemistry. Hung gained an interest in education research while participating in volunteering campaigns in Vietnam. In his free time, he likes to read about different cultures and world history of countries that he would like to visit. He is also a big fan of football (soccer), and watches games in his free time.
Undergraduate Students
Nayer Abd El Meseh worked in our research group during his junior and senior years, while majoring in Environmental Science and also studying pre-dentistry. He grew up in Egypt and moved to the United States when he was 12. Nayer completed his senior capstone thesis in environmental science in our group. He plans on going to dental school. He worked with Dr. Sevian and graduate student Steve Couture on developing a new electrochemistry lab for general chemistry using the Model of Educational Reconstruction as a framework. The lab has now been incorporated in the CHEM 118 course at UMass Boston.
Jose Amado
Jose Amado has nearly completed a B.S. in electrical engineering from UMass Lowell. He is originally from Cape Verde. From 2004-7, Jose completed pre-engineering undergraduate studies at UMass Boston while working on undergraduate green chemistry inquiry-based lab development. He co-authored a paper published in the Journal of Chemical Education, and presented a poster about his research at the American Chemical Society meeting in 2009.
Sarah Auguste graduated with a degree in chemistry and psychology from UMass Boston in 2014. While in the Sevian Research group, she worked on the abstraction threshold project which was the focus of her senior capstone thesis in chemistry. She grew up in Stoughton, MA. Sarah intends to work in chemistry or medical research. Sarah is currently studying in the chemistry Ph.D. program at Boston College.
Jesse Baldoria graduated in biochemistry from UMass Boston in 2018. She transferred to UMass Boston from Clark University, starting at UMass Boston in Fall '15. She grew up in New York City. During 2016-17, she worked with Dr. Sevian, Courtney Ngai, and Dr. Hugi-Cleary on analyzing the way students process chemistry education through SAMM surveys that have open ended questions related to the particulate nature of matter. Through this project, students' understanding of chemistry and the pathways they take to learn the content can be examined and used to better tailor education for the students.
Marta Escriu-Suñé
 Marta Escriu-Suñé graduated with honors in biology from UMass Boston in 2011. She is originally from Spain. She carried out her honors thesis work within the development of conceptualization of scientific models project with Dr. Stains, co-authored a paper that is published in the Journal of Chemical Education, and presented a poster about her research at the American Chemical Society meeting in 2011. The title of her senior thesis was: "Did you smell that?": Exploring students' explanations of the diffusion of a scented gas in air. Marta intends to go to medical school.
Taraneh Farhangmehr
Taraneh graduated with a degree in chemistry from UMass Boston in 2013. She is originally from Iran. Her capstone project studied how undergraduate students develop science identity, and particularly identity as chemists, during their freshman year. The title of her senior capstone thesis in chemistry was: A case study on how a student's relationship with chemistry affects the development of his identity as a chemist. Taraneh is now a graduate student at the New England School of Acupuncture.
Josibel was in our group during her junior and senior years. She majored in biochemistry with a minor in psychology, and completed her honors thesis on pupillometry work in our group. She grew up all over the world, and has lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Bahrain. After her degree at UMass Boston, she plans to go to medical school. In our group, she worked on using eye tracking to study how students use structure-property relationships to reason about authentic chemical concerns.
Laura Kibuuka
  Laura Kibuuka graduated with honors in biology from UMass Boston in 2009. She was originally from Uganda. She carried out her honors thesis work in our group on the ruthenium light emitting diode project, which she worked on for three years. Laura was a student in medical school at Brown University. Tragically, she was killed when hit by a train in 2013. We express our condolences to the family and friends of Laura. The world has lost an amazing person.
Shown in photo, Laura presented a poster about her research at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia in 2008. < Link to abstract>
Raineiro Javier Reinoso
Javier worked in the Sevian group while he was a sophomore majoring in chemistry. He is originally from Ecuador, and also has lived in Spain. While in the Sevian group, he worked on developing a greener equilibrium constant experiment to replace the traditional version used in UMass Boston's general chemistry course.
Siedeh Rezaei-Kalamabad
Siedeh Rezaei-Kalamabad graduated with a BS in Biology from UMass Boston in 2012. She grew up in Cambridge, MA. She studied how middle school students question, hypothesize, and construct experiments, and how scientific identity develops through the process of learning to do this. She currently runs her own business called The Alternative Horticulturalist.
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Ashley Roti worked in the Sevian group while a junior majoring in biology with a minor in cognitive science. She grew up in South Florida and moved to Boston, MA, in 2013. In the future, Ashley intends to pursue a career in medicine, with an emphasis in clinical research. Ashley worked on a collaboration with local high school chemistry teacher and UMass Boston chemistry M.S. graduate, Chris Koutros, and Dr. Sevian on studying how kinesthetic activities modeling the behavior of matter impact students' thinking about structure-property relationships in chemistry. |
Zineb Mastouri
Zineb Mastouri worked in our group as a sophomore majoring in biology. She is Moroccan-American and grew up in Malden, MA. Her interests include biology, chemistry, and psychology. In the future, she hopes to pursue a career in oncology research.
Kevin McGuire worked in our group while he was a junior majoring in chemistry. He is from Boston. After graduation he plans on continuing his education, focusing on green chemistry. He worked with Dr.Sevian and graduate student Raúl Orduña Picón on incorporating green chemistry into a lab for general chemistry using the Model of Educational Reconstruction as a framework.
Yasamin Nail
 Yasamin Nail worked in our group as a sophomore majoring in chemistry on a pre-med track. She is originally from Afghanistan and currently lives in Revere, MA. Her interests include chemistry and neurology. Her future goal is to use the knowledge of chemistry and medicine to further improve human health.
Felix Nampanya worked in our group during his sophomore and junior years. He majored in biochemistry. He is from Japan and moved to Quincy, MA, where he graduated high school. His interests include biology and chemistry. He intends to study medicine or chemistry after graduating college. Felix worked on developing a greener kinetics experiment to replace the traditional iodine clock experiment in general chemistry. The greener experiment uses inexpensive materials that can be easily found in a supermarket, and produces no toxic wastes.
Qausarat Ogunneye
 Qausarat Ogunneye graduated from UMass Boston in May 2019 with a BS in Biology. She was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, where she lived for 13 years. She joined the Sevian group in December 2018. During Spring 2019, she worked with Klaudja Caushi and Dr. Sevian to study how students reason about chemical control in different educational levels.
Shawn Rock
Shawn Rock worked in the Sevian group during his junior and senior years and participated in the UTeach program. His objective is to teach high school chemistry after he graduates. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Maryland where he focused on brain physiology and perception, and has over 25 years of experience in the information technology industry. Shawn is working on his senior capstone thesis with Jessica Karch and Dr. Sevian to apply eye tracking and pupillometry technology to study how students infer properties from 2D and 3D models of molecular structures. Shawn is a recent transplant to the Boston area. He grew up in the Washington, DC suburbs, then spent 20 years in the Philadelphia area. He is excited to share his background in Psychology and information technology with the team. Shawn graduated in May, 2018. He is currently working as a student teacher in Boston Public Schools.
Veneta Slavova
 Veneta Slavova graduated with honors in biochemistry from UMass Boston in 2010. She is originally from Bulgaria. She worked on the ruthenium thin films projects with Dr. Chattopadhyay for two years. Veneta intends to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry at some point. In the summer of 2009, she did a Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently a Research Associate at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Mitzi Sweeney
 Mitzi Sweeney graduated with a joint major in biology and psychology in May 2014. She plans to pursue a graduate degree in neuroscience next. Mitzi was an NIH Bridges Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) intern in the summer of 2007, while she was a sophomore majoring in pre-nursing at Roxbury Community College. She transferred to UMass Boston in January, 2008, originally with a plan to complete her B.S. in nursing, but then changed to biology. Mitzi is originally from Guyana. While in our research group, she worked on green inquiry labs development.
Autumn Tobin
Autumn Tobin (née McEuen) graduated with honors in biology from UMass Boston in 2006. The title of her senior thesis was: A comparative analysis of active-inquiry vs. traditional laboratory activities and effects on learning mitosis and meiosis. She grew up in Ohio. She completed the Teach Next Year program, a partnership between UMass Boston and Boston Public Schools, and is now a high school biology and chemistry teacher in Boston Public Schools.
Florence Wanjiku
Florence worked in our research group during her sophomore, junior, and senior years majoring in chemistry. She is from Kenya, and currently lives in Lowell, MA. She plans on teaching middle and high school chemistry after she graduates, and she may also pursue a pharmacy degree. Florence worked on analyzing data collected using the SAMM survey, working on a collaboration with Dr. Hugi-Cleary, Courtney Ngai, and Dr. Sevian. She completed her senior capstone thesis, extending the validity of the SAMM survey to 6th and 7th grades, in May 2018. Currently Florence is working toward her Masters of Education in the Teach Next Year program at UMass Boston, and plans on becoming a middle school science teacher.
Trenton Woodham
Trenton Woodham worked in our group as a senior majoring in biochemistry. He grew up in Texas. His work in this research group was on developing a greener and more economical alternative for students to study kinetics phenomena in high school and lower-level undergraduate chemistry laboratory learning, with the hope that a suite of elegant and simple experiments on kinetics could be done inexpensively in schools in the US as well as in places in the world where there are few resources for laboratory experiments. After Trenton graduated in May 2014, he has continued his studies toward a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology at Brown University, beginning in Fall 2014.
Jialei Xu
Jialei Xu worked in our group while a junior majoring in chemistry. She is originally from China. During 2012-13, she explored options for a research project to combine her love for organic synthesis with chemical education research.
Mulbah Zaza
 Mulbah Zaza graduated in 2007 with a B.S. in chemistry from UMass Boston. He is originally from Liberia. He did his undergraduate capstone thesis research on a study of differences in how general chemistry students understand entropy questions when solving problems presented with words only, words with static drawings, and words with animations.
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Yasamin Nail worked in our group as a sophomore majoring in chemistry on a pre-med track. She is originally from Afghanistan and currently lives in Revere, MA. Her interests include chemistry and neurology. Her future goal is to use the knowledge of chemistry and medicine to further improve human health.
Qausarat Ogunneye graduated from UMass Boston in May 2019 with a BS in Biology. She was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, where she lived for 13 years. She joined the Sevian group in December 2018. During Spring 2019, she worked with Klaudja Caushi and Dr. Sevian to study how students reason about chemical control in different educational levels.
