Researchers

Dr. Rebecca Reynolds is an Associate Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information.Her work investigates social constructivist human learning in formal educational settings of K-12, higher education, and continuing education, along with informal learning environments, and intentional and incidental learning occurring in naturalistic online participatory settings such as social media platforms. She explores design and development of socio-technical systems for e-learning and the systemic, social, and critical implications of their deployment, such as privacy and data ethics.She situates her work in disciplines of information science, learning sciences, socio-technical systems research, critical informatics, and human information behavior.

Reynolds' past design-based research efforts have contributed to commercialization of a K-12 computer science e-learning platform and system, acquired by Carnegie Learning. Her work has been funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and several Rutgers internal grant programs.One recent project addresses teacher practices during emergency remote teaching in the pandemic, as it relates to digital inequality, instructional design, and student engagement and motivation. Sheis the co-founder and co-editor of the journal,Information and Learning Sciences, published by Emerald.

Note: Reynolds and a colleague guest-edited a full collection of 42 open-access articles in a Special Issue on “Emergency Remote Teaching under COVID19” in the Summer of 2020. The full collection can be found at:

https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/ils/special-issue-free-ac...

Hal Salzman is Professor of Planning and Public Policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School and Senior Faculty Fellow at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. His research focuses on science and engineering labor markets, workplace restructuring, skill requirements, and globalization of innovation, engineering and technology design. Recently he has been writing on the science and technology policy implications of his research. Current projects, as Principal Investigator, include several studies of science and engineering education and careers and is funded by the Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation. These projects build on Salzman’s previous research on science and engineering education and the workforce (see, for example, “Making the Grade” in Nature and “What Shortages?” in Issues in Science and Technology.) He has testified to Senate and House committees on science and engineering workforce and globalization issues. His work has been cited in Nature, Science, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, PBS Newshour, NPR, and other media.

Dr. Shernoff is an educational psychologist who conducts applied research in schools, after-school settings, technology-supported environments, and other learning environments. He is interested in educational and other holding environments supportive of positive development. Specific areas of research relate primarily to the motivation and engagement of youth, engagement and learning in game-based, digital learning environments, and mentoring in early career development. He has served as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on over 12 research projects on community engagement, student engagement, or teacher professional development. His research has yielded 5 authored or edited books, and over 35 other publications. He serves on several editorial boards and as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He served as chair and program chair of the Out-of-School Time Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Dr.Shernoff’s work centers on developing and testing interventions to enhance the use of evidence-based instructional and classroom management practices among teachers working in high poverty schools. Her primary focus is on mental health promotion and resilience by enhancing the capacity of teachers, particularly early career teachers, to accomplish their goal of supporting student learning, behavior, and development. In addition, Dr. Shernoff’s work focuses on ensuring school psychologists enter the workplace prepared to deliver and support high quality, effective services through developing effective training in evidence-based practices and consultation.

Deborah Silver is the Executive Director of the Professional Science Master’s Program at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey on all three campuses - Newark, New Brunswick & Camden (2009-). This program offers the Master of Business & Science (MBS) degree which is a combination of a science master’s with courses in business. She has been with the program since its inception and helped found and build the program to include all areas of science and technology. She is also a Professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers, a post she has held since 1988.

Jonathan Singer’s primary research interest is the generation of hierarchically structured materials via scalable micro/nanomanufacturing processes to incorporate the extraordinary properties of nanostructures into complex geometries. This is accomplished through combinations of “bottom-up” and “top-down” lithographic techniques. Such hybrid techniques shift the burden of high resolution patterning to a high-throughput process, while retaining a sufficient degree of control for targeted applications in, for example, alternative energy, microrobotics, and medical implants. Previously, Jonathan conducted his doctoral research at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering focusing on hybrid laser direct write lithography for phoxonic metamaterials and completed a Postdoctoral Associateship at Yale University’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering primarily researching the nanoimprint of photovoltaic materials and bulk metallic glass alloys. He has been recognized by the Materials Research Society through their Silver Graduate Student Award and was recently named a Yale Scientific Teaching Fellow.

Dr. Sinha is currently the Director of Indistrict Initiatives at the Center for Math, Science and Computer Education. She is interested in understanding how students’ engagement with technologies influences their thinking and learning. Her dissertation reflected this line of research by investigating influences of technological affordances (of simulations, hypermedia and modeling tools) on collaborative engagement and subsequently how student’s collaborative engagements in technology intensive learning environments influences individual transfer of learning. Her interest in blending these two major research areas, i.e. engagement and transfer, stem from her prior professional focus on educational technology.

Marissa Staffen is a 4-H County Agent III, Cooperative Extension of Essex County

Dr. Trees currently coordinates introductory computer science courses for non-majors at Rutgers. Her research area is computer science education. Her dissertation research investigated the characteristics that contribute to the perceived effectiveness of pedagogical tools used in introductory programming classes. Her current research focuses more on pedagogical approaches to teaching computer science in ways that promote diversity, particularly by implementing cooperative learning structures in introductory computer science courses to promote equal engagement of all students.

Dr. Weber is a researcher in mathematics education whose interests are in the mathematical cognition of doing advanced mathematics. He is particularly interested in mathematical proof, including how mathematicians and mathematics majors present, read, understand, and evaluate proofs.