Lab Researchers

Andrea Marquardt Donovan

Andrea is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology. Her research is at the intersection of Psychology and education, with a particular interest in math cognition. Her work focuses on how children use representations, specifically their bodies, as well as manipulatives with their bodies, to learn, and how they communicate their knowledge through action and gesture. She is also interested in what information children and adults glean from other people’s bodies during learning via observation of action and gesture.

Email: amdonovan2@wisc.edu

David Menendez

I’m a fifth year graduate student advised by Martha Alibali and Karl Rosengren. My research broadly centers on conceptual development. More specifically, on children’s understanding of the natural world, and how visual representations aid or hinder learning about biology. I am also interested in how socio-cultural factors influence cognitive development.

Email: dmenendez@wisc.edu

Lauren Anthony 

I am a second year graduate student co-advised by Martha Alibali and C. Shawn Green in the Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience area. As an undergraduate at UCLA, I studied problem representation in mathematics and memory strategies. My current research investigates how students engage with patterns in mathematical contexts and the extent to which experience with patterns affects both procedural fluency and knowledge about mathematical relationships.

Email: leanthony2@wisc.edu

Victoria Jay

I am a first year developmental psychology PhD student advised by Martha Alibali. I’m a Wisconsin native who got my B.S. in Psychology & Neurobiology here at UW-Madison, and am excited to be back after receiving my M.S. in Psychology from the University of Illinois. Broadly, my interests lie in the development of systems and representations that underlie our abilities for more formal mathematics.

Email: vjay@wisc.edu

Rui Meng

I am a sixth year graduate student advised by Martha Alibali and Percival Matthews. My research focuses on cognitive development and cuts across cognitive, developmental, and educational psychology. In particular, I study how young children and adults understand and interpret covariation data, and its connections with other numerical and mathematical concepts.

Email: rmeng5@wisc.edu

Anna Bartel

I am a fifth year cognitive psychology PhD student advised by Martha Alibali. My current research revolves around how visual and data representations influence student understanding of algebra and statistics. Some of my most recent projects include: (a) assessing different error patterns in algebraic symbolization as a function of different diagram types, (b) investigating how graphical and textual framing cues influence problem solving accuracy and strategy use on constant change problems, and (c) exploring the effects of graphical depictions of variability in how people interpret graphs. You can find me tweeting about math, stats, and beyond at @annabartel_ .

Email: anbartel@wisc.edu

Nicholas Vest

I am a second-year graduate student advised by Martha Alibali. My current research investigates numerical cognition with a focus on the development of abstract mathematical concepts such as zero. Additionally, I am interested in gesture and action and how our motor behaviors influence learning. Prior to graduate school, I obtained a B.S. in Psychology at Indiana University where I also worked as a lab manager for two years. You can find me on Twitter @nicholas_vest.

Email: navest@wisc.edu

Emily Szkudlarek

I am a post-doctoral scholar at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research working in both the Cognitive Development and Communication lab and the Mathematics Education Learning and Development Lab with Dr. Percival Matthews. Before coming to UW-Madison, I received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania working with Dr. Elizabeth Brannon. I am interested in how children and adults can build mathematical understanding from concrete depictions of numerical and arithmetic concepts. Specifically, I investigate how we can perform intuitive, non-symbolic math operations as children before formal mathematical instruction, and situations where adults already expert in symbolic calculation persist in their use of intuitive strategies to solve math problems. My research explores how strong arithmetic concepts can support advanced mathematical reasoning.

Email: szkudlarek@wisc.edu

Daniel Alcaraz Carrion

I am a post-doctoral fellow funded by the Séneca Foundation in Murcia, Spain, as well as a member of the Little Red Hen Lab and the Daedalus lab (University of Murcia, Spain). Before coming to UW-Madison, I received my PhD in Linguistics and English Language from Lancaster University, UK advised by Prof. Christopher Hart. My work focuses on how speakers communicate and understand abstract concepts, such as time, number and abstract magnitude, through both speech and other multimodal devices such as gestures or graphic representations. To do this, I analyze large quantities of textual and audiovisual data extracted from a TV news repository to detect speech-gesture patterns. During my time at UW-Madison, I will specifically focus on how certain speech and multimodal patterns may affect the comprehension of temporal concepts in instructional settings, as well as exploring the relation between temporal and numerical cognition in multimodal communication.

Email: alcarazcarri@wisc.edu

Elena Silla

I am one of the project managers in the lab. The projects I am working on investigate how children think about math and whether the use of tools such as diagrams and manipulatives enhance student understanding. I am a former teacher and am now interested in developing research-based tools and techniques that can be used by educators to improve student education and hope to pursue this in later graduate studies. 

Email: esilla@wisc.edu

Olympia Mathiaparanam

I am a new project manager being advised by Martha Alibali and Karl Rosengren. Our research broadly investigates how visual diagrams help children learn about biological variation and aid in their understanding of biological concepts including metamorphosis, inheritance, and evolution.

Email: omathhiaparan@wisc.edu