Education

  • Ph.D. 2022 – University of California-Irvine, Education (Focus: STEM Teaching and Learning)
  • M.A. 2020 – University of California-Irvine, Education (Focus: STEM Teaching and Learning)
  • B.A. 2018 – Duke University, Public Policy & Education

Areas of Expertise

  • Learning Analytics
  • AI in Education
  • STEM Education

Background

Ha Nguyen, Ph.D., designs and researches learning technologies to promote deeper STEM knowledge and competencies for diverse learners. Her interest in Education started in high school through volunteering with education nonprofits in Vietnam. This interest deepened in college, as she tutored elementary and middle school students and conducted research in public schools and nonprofits in Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina. Through these experiences, she learned the importance of two practices: cultivating local partnerships and centering students’ voices. Both practices continued to inform her research.

Before her current role at UNC-Chapel Hill, Nguyen held a faculty appointment in Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences at Utah State University.

Research

Nguyen’s current research has dual focus on *Design* and *Analytics*. From a Design perspective, she partners with students, educators, and community organizations to ground the design of technologies (e.g., conversational agents, learning dashboards) in learners’ experiences. She further applies learning analytics methods to investigate how people construct knowledge in informal and formal learning environments, in collaboration with others or with AI technologies. This Analytics strand generates insights to inform technology design, to support human-human and human-AI exchanges towards productive learning. Her work has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation, and her research has been published in leading journals in learning analytics and science education, including Computers & Education, British Journal of Education Technology, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and Journal of Learning Analytics.