Meet our Students

Lance Brooks

West Chester University, M.S. Exercise Science

Southern Methodist University, B.S. Applied Physiology & Health Management

Research interest(s): Biomechanical basis of sprint acceleration performance as well as a masters thesis exploring the role of upper extremity motion in sprinting.

Current research fellowship: 

Professional experience: Years of experience in the performance coaching realm at the collegiate and collegiate prep levels, as well as in the private sector. Through these avenues, Lance has connected with a variety of high-level talented athletes, serving as a consultant to Olympic gold medalist English Gardner, Nigel The Freeze Talton, and others.

Rashard Fant

Indiana University - Bloomington, B.S. Management

Research interest(s): Organizational Change, Culture, and Leadership within intercollegiate athletics. As well as examining Intersectionality, equity, and access issues amongst Black students and student-athletes at predominately white institutions (PWIs).

Current research fellowship: Mustang Fellowship: Recognizes Ph.D. students who show great promise for academic success and potential to enhance graduate program diversity at SMU.

Professional experience: Prior to SMU, Rashard played professional football for the Chicago Bears, served as a Career Coach for working adults, and has held numerous positions within student-athlete development and support departments in the collegiate athletics field. He is currently working for SMU Athletics as the Director of Student-Athlete Success.

Paul Foster

Columbia University, MBA Marketing

Columbia University, B.A. Philosophy

Research interest(s): Applying the Theory of Constraints to Education, which requires diagnostic assessment that is as accurate, timely, and efficient, as possible.

Current Fellowship: I am on the NSF-funded STEM+C project that aims to use the Minecraft video game to teach middle-schoolers Computational Thinking. The big idea is to use the student engagement generated by successful commercial video games to promote student learning.

Professional experience: During a 25-year business career, I founded or led organizations in healthcare or staffing. These included a $73 million company with 10 offices worldwide, and culminated in being the CEO of a $150 million home health and hospice company with 2,000 team members in 91 locations nationwide serving 7,000 patients.

Charlotte Gregor

Southern Methodist University, M.Ed. Literacy

Vanderbilt University, B.S. Elementary Education and Child Studies

Research interest(s): I am interested in foundational literacy acquisition for students both with and without disabilities. It is my goal to ensure that high quality reading instruction grounded in Structured Literacy is available for all students. I specialize in work surrounding students with and at risk for language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

Current Fellowship: I work with Dr. Jill Allor and Dr. Stephanie Al Otaiba on Project Intensity, a research project aimed at assessing the efficacy of Friends on the Block (an intensive literacy intervention) for use with students diagnosed with Intellectual Disabilities and other low incidence disabilities. The mission of the project is to make literacy accessible to all children - and to have fun while learning!

Professional experience: Prior to beginning at SMU, Charlotte worked as an Academic Language Therapist in Dallas ISD teaching children with dyslexia fundamental literacy skills. She also had the opportunity to serve the Dallas community in multiple academic interventionist roles since graduating from Vanderbilt in 2016.

Cheyenne Heath-Warr

University of Texas - Permian Basin, M.A. Special Education

Pepperdine University, B.A. Liberal Arts

Research interest(s): Diversity, equity, and inclusion among K-12 schools, particularly private educational institutions.

Current Fellowship: Funded by the Moody Graduate Fellowship, Cheyenne works under the advisement of Dr. Meredith Richards in the department of Education Policy and Leadership.

Professional experience: Prior to SMU, Cheyenne worked as a teacher across various grade levels and subjects. She most recently served as the Resource Intervention Program Director at a private school in California where she taught and advocated for students with exceptional learning needs.

Jonathan Hunnicutt

Fuller Theological Seminary, Master of Divinity

Texas A&M University, B.S. Sociology

Research interest(s): Bridging Learning Science and Computational Social Science via automated data collection, educator social networks, and mathematical models of complex contagion to understand how math teachers learn and spread good pedagogy.

Current research fellowship: Lead Graduate Research Assistant, supervising four undergraduates, for my co-Advisor Dr. Candace Walkington under the EXCEL grant. This embodied cognition research explores how AR/VR might help ELL students collaborate and learn geometry.

Assisted my co-Advisor, Dr. Annie Wilhelm, in adapting an inquiry-based math curriculum for the West Dallas STEM School.

Professional experience: Corps of Cadets and Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. Math Tutor for 20 years. Ordained Anglican Deacon. Failed Church Planter. Taught Math at Uplift Williams, a Title I, T-STEM High School. In my first 3 years, quadrupled AP Calculus AB passing rate. Lead HS Math team through Uplift's transition to IB-for-All.

Joanne Joo

Columbia University, M.A. Statistics

State University of New York at Stony Brook, B.S. Applied Math and Statistics

Research interest(s): My research centers on studying educators working with students experiencing difficulties. Specifically, I'm intrigued by their self-efficacy, career intentions, and how interventions and math assessments can bolster their teaching efficacy.

Current research fellowship: I am a member of the Leaders Investigating Mathematics Evidence (LIME) fellowship program, funded by the Department of Education. I have been working on the SCALE and the PAR math intervention projects helping 4th and 6th graders with math difficulties in Texas, Idaho, and Missouri.

Professional experience: I worked as an HR manager at a Korean engineering company for 4 years. I was involved in projects building the infrastructure for electricity and water supply in Africa and oil sands plants in Canada. I managed data on nearly 10,000 employees and created solutions to improve their performance.

Maricela Leon

Southern Methodist University, M.B.E. Bilingual Education and Gifted and Talented

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, B.S. Economics

Research interest(s): Successful implementation of Dual Language Immersion Programs, equity and social justice for multilingual/multi-dialect learners, socio-cultural competence, and critical linguistics.

Current Fellowship: I am currently working with Dr. Quentin Sedlacek in a project that analyzes Teacher's education in African American Languages and its impact on Science Teaching. I am also part of the West Dallas STEM School project designing inquiry driven curriculum and coaching educators that work with students classified as Emergent Bilinguals or speakers of other languages or dialects.

Professional experience: Bilingual/ESL Instructional Coach, Language Acquisition Specialist, Design/Coordination/Implementation of Dual Language Immersion Programs, Argument Driven Inquiry applied to Dual Language Programs, Parent Engagement Initiatives, Coppell ISD strategic design committee. Experience teaching PK, 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade learners.

Charity Lewallen

CalPoly San Luis Obispo - MA Education Counseling and Guidance

University of California Los Angeles - BA Sociology

Research interest(s): As a higher education scholar, my research interests include institutional, state, national and accreditation policies that influence transfer student pathways and outcomes. This interest stems from a deep commitment to address systemic shortfalls in higher education in the US, particularly those policy shortfalls that contribute to significant inequities for students from underrepresented minority backgrounds. I also engage in research exploring structures, strategies and leaders (boards and presidents) of higher education institutions. I am deeply interested and committed to work that contributes to policies and systems that promote just and impartial pathways to a college degree for all students.

Current research fellowship: I am funded by the Fairess Simmons Fellowship, and I work primarily with Dr. Sondra N. Barringer, Ph.D on research that explores various organizational and policy dynamics in higher education institutions. Specifically, we are studying how R1-striving institutions change their academic organizational structure over time. We also study college presidents and boards of trustees to better understand the types of leadership profiles and reasons for leadership instability in some institutions. Lastly, we are working on a project that examines the nature of transfer partnerships between community colleges and universities across Texas.

Professional experience: A well-established career in higher education for over 20 years informs the work I do as a scholar. I have held a range of roles including administrator, instructor and academic advisor in a variety of colleges and universities. I've gathered invaluable experience from working at a breadth of institutions, including regional 4-year public, large community college system, small private religious liberal arts university, and small art and design college- each with its own niche culture and needs. And this experience spans two states with vastly different higher education systems- California and Texas. While my roles changed with each institution, my commitment to investing in systems, programs and curriculum to support student success remained constant.

Sydney Loutit 

Southern Methodist University, M.Ed. Higher Education Policy and Leadership

Texas Christian University, BS Sports Broadcasting

Research interest(s): My primary research interest is student-athlete academic success in higher education from both a first-hand qualitative perspective as well as the larger context of higher education policy as it affects these students.

Current research fellowship: My research fellowship is with the Education Policy and Leadership department, where I have assisted with research on university governance and athletic profiles of universities.

Professional experience: Following my undergraduate degree I worked for the Dallas Stars in communications and partnerships. I decided to return to school to complete my master's degree and work with student-athletes as an assistant academic counselor here at SMU. I finished my master's in 2022 and began my Ph.D. in the fall of that same year.

Saki Milton

Southern Methodist University, MBA Marketing

University of Texas at Austin, B.A. Mathematics

Research interest(s): My research interests in STEM education is to study the design of informal learning environments situated within Black and brown girls' (grades 6-12) learning ecosystems. I am curious about the effects of various interventions that impact underrepresented and underserved girls' attitudes, confidence, interests, and choices in STEM career pathways in order to alleviate disparities associated with the intersectionality of race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Current research fellowship: As a first year Graduate Research Assistant, I am working on the Mathfinder App project under Dr. Candace Walkington. This Innovations and Development Project will conduct research on a location-based mobile app for informal mathematics learning and is funded by the National Science Foundation AISL Advancement of Informal STEM Learning (DRL 2115393).

Professional experience: I am an experienced educator and international girls in STEM advocate with more than 20 years of mathematics education experience. I am the founder and Executive Director of The GEMS Camp (Girls interested in Engineering, Mathematics, and Science), a 501(c)3 based in Dallas, TX. My experience includes mathematics classroom teaching in diverse settings such as public, public charter, and international schools, curriculum writing, and marketing and consulting in edTech. I hold a BA in Mathematics from The University of Texas at Austin.

Sunil Prajapati

University of Texas at Austin, B.S. Mechanical Engineering

Marc Sager

Missouri State University, M.S. Elementary Education

Texas A&M University, B.S. Agricultural Economics

Research interest(s): My research interests integrate three topics: a) data science education, b) informal STEM learning, and c) research practice partnerships.

Current research fellowship: I am working on the WalkSTEM project with Dr. Candace Walkington and Dr. Tony Petrosino, West Dallas STEM School science curriculum with Dr. Jeanna Wieselmann, and the UTeach and NYC DOE CS4ALL Research Practice Partnership with Dr. Petrosino and his colleagues at the University of Texas-Austin.

Professional experience: Previously worked in management within the processed food manufacturing sector and was an agricultural science teacher and FFA advisor.

Ching-Yu Tseng

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, M.A. Educational Psychology, Learning and Cognition

National Central University, B.A. Business Administration/Finance

Research interest(s): Computational Thinking, Game-Based Learning, and Mathematic Thinking. Exploring the learning effects of fostering computational thinking (CT) within game-based learning environments and how CT skills benefit students in the STEM fields.

Current Fellowship: I am currently working on the STEM+C project with Dr. Leanne Ketterlin Geller in Research in Mathematics Education (RME) lab. We aim to combine interdisciplinary expertise from learning scientists, game designers, and computer scientists to integrate computational thinking into STEM education within a commercial game, Minecraft.

Professional experience: I had been a math teacher for over ten years in the after-school program. My expertise is in solving students' learning difficulties in math. While studying in the master's program, I developed research skills, including designing and conducting experiments in middle school classrooms, data coding, and analysis skills.

Kuo Wang

University of Electro, M.E. Software Design

Senshu University, B.A. Information Management

Research interest(s): My research interest includes online learning, automated measurement, and data analysis of assessment. My current research focuses on the automated measurement of oral reading fluency with prosodic features using deep learning.

Current research fellowship: I am a third-year Ph.D. student and research assistant. I am working on different research projects with different researchers who come from different institutions. According to the project, I am using both R language and Python language in my research. I am enjoying my research, especially cooperating with the other researchers.

Professional experience: I have worked both in Japan and China as a software design manager and a professional developer of software systems. I have nearly 20 years of career in the field of business software development and gained extensive knowledge and experience in relative areas.

Julianna Washington

Southern Methodist University, M.Ed. Education (focus in STEM Education)

The University of Texas at Austin, B.A. Economics

Research interest(s): I am interested in and research the effects of technology on how people learn STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). My interests revolve mostly around high school students learning and pre-service and in-service teachers' experiences with technology. Specifically, I look at Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and iPads. My work primarily draws on embodied and distributed theories of cognition and gestures. I have also conducted research with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Current Fellowship: I am a Graduate Research Assistant and work primarily with Dr. Candace Walkington on her Augmented Reality (AR) Grant. Our research further examines ways to connect mathematical practices with physical motions including gestures, using AR, VR, and motion capture technologies. This grant from the U.S. Department of Education examines how AR technologies can allow students to collaborate using shared holograms of geometric shapes. Additionally, I am currently working with Dr. Anthony Petrosino on one of Candace's National Science Foundation (NSF) grants that studies how STEM walks can help students see the world through the lens of math. This team is partnering with nine Dallas learning sites, including the Dallas Arboretum, to create and evaluate the effectiveness of STEM walks. Tony, myself, and some colleagues are examining the Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs) within this greater grant. Finally, I have worked on Candace's Artificial Intelligence (AI) grant that collaborated with Rice University.

Professional experience: Prior to beginning at SMU, I served through a partnership with Teach For America (TFA) at a public middle school in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) as a math and coding teacher. I also served as a Pre-Calculus teacher for Southern Methodist University's (SMU's) summer school program, Upward Bound.