Monthly News | May 2025

Mary Roosevelt: a legacy that lives on through program, K-12 partnerships

Originally a teacher credentialing student, Roosevelt dedicated 27 years of her career to UC Irvine, transforming the teacher education program and producing results worthy of the top-tier research institution the university has become.

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Three undergrads receive 2025 Chancellor’s Award of Distinction

Mariana Ramirez (pictured, left), Sevanna Emma Shaverdian (middle) and Jiexiao Wu (right) were among the graduating seniors selected for their exceptional academic achievements and their commitment to cutting-edge research, leadership, and service to the university.

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Representation, leadership and community in higher education

Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives Sam Bersola reflects on his decades-long involvement with Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE), an organization he credits with launching his career and he continues to help guide and shape today.

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Bustamante (left) with Interim Dean Julie Washington

Associate professor honored at annual Innovator Awards

On May 5, Andres Bustamante received the Emerging Innovation/Early Career Innovator award. The award recognizes distinguished innovators who have demonstrated excellence in the early stage of their careers, or in the early stages of an innovation breakthrough, through a combined effort in outstanding research and innovation.

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2025 NARST Fellowship awarded to associate professor

The honor bestowed upon Hosun Kang recognizes her outstanding contributions to science education research and her commitment to advancing equity and social justice in STEM teaching and learning.

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Doctoral students elected to the Society for Research in Child Development Student and Early Career Council

Alysia Cruz (left) and Lina Carpenter will serve four-year terms on the Membership Committee and on the Teaching Committee, respectively. Learn more

Gift from Pacific Life to launch new UCI Science Project/Teacher Academy initiative

Literacy is STEAM: Books for Science Inquiry will strengthen STEAM literacy in local schools by encouraging collaboration between UC Irvine faculty and teacher leaders to design interdisciplinary, inquiry-based science lessons for TK–6 educators.

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UCOP awards $2.26 million for multicampus research project examining effects of heat exposure on elementary students

Associate Professor Emily Penner will co-lead the UC Irvine team, which will partner with three elementary schools to investigate playground temperatures and current heat plans, while developing heat readiness plans.

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May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

The UC Irvine Libraries offers resources and materials in celebration of AAPI Heritage Month. Peruse online resources, special collections and archives, and recent additions to the AAPI collection here.

Edward O. Thorp to serve as commencement speaker

The hedge fund manager, blackjack strategist, New York Times best-selling author and a founding professor of the School of Mathematics, Thorp will deliver his keynote speech at the joint ceremony between the Schools of Education and Physical Sciences on June 14.

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Launch of Teaching Artist Certificate program celebrated with expert panel

Developed in partnership with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and the Division of Continuing Education, the program will empower and prepare students to become the next generation of art educators.

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Focus on playful learning and the National Science Foundation

On May 10, the School of Education celebrated playful learning in action and 75 years of the National Science Foundation—showcasing how NSF-funded projects such as Parkopolis at Madison Park are bringing learning to life in Santa Ana, Calif.

View the photo gallery | Learn more about the project

Upcoming Events

Featured event: Jewish American Heritage Month

Join us for a conversation of Jewish involvement in the labor movements of the 20th century, with special guest Rabbi Daniel Levine

Thursday, May 29 at 4:00 p.m.

SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union Conference Room (Room 3236)

RSVP

• Jun–Aug – UC Irvine Writing Project's Summer Youth Program 2025
• June 9-11 – CRLP Learning How English Works Summer Institute
• June 10, 11, 24, 25 – Computer Science Community of Practice Cohort 2, presented by the UC Irvine Science Project
• June 10-11 – Oral History as Community History: Foundations and Futures Summer 2025 Workshop, sponsored by the UC Irvine Teacher Academy in partnership with the UC Irvine School of Humanities and UCLA Asian American Studies Center
• June 11 – Community reception: Foundations and Futures Multimedia Textbook on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, co-presented by the UC Irvine Teacher Academy
• June 16-18 – CRLP Results for Reading Comprehension Summer Institute
• June 23-July 18 – Summer Institute 2025 – Into the Wild: Writing Beyond Boundaries, presented by the UC Irvine Writing Project
• June 23-24 – Desarrollando competencia sociocultural con lecturas en voz alta en español/Building Sociocultural Competence with Spanish Read Alouds, presented by the California Reading & Literature Project
• June 26, July 10 & 17 – Demystifying the CAST: Unlocking Student Success through Assessment, presented by the UC Irvine Science Project
• July 22, 24 & 29 – Climate Literacy and CA AB 285: Supporting Science Education in a Changing World, presented by the UC Irvine Science Project
• August 23 – Literacy is STEAM: Books for Science Workshop, presented by the UC Irvine Science Project

Please visit the Teacher Academy website to view more upcoming workshops.

• Professor Drew Bailey part of research team that found corporal punishment in low- to middle-income countries yields similar negative outcomes as in wealthier countries (Mirage News)

• Professor Richard Arum, and Doctoral Students Xunfei Li and Jomar Lopes: “ChatGPT Early Adoption in Higher Education: Variation in Student Usage, Instructional Support, and Educational Equity.” In: AERA Open
• Professor Drew Bailey: “Physical punishment and lifelong outcomes in low‑ and middle‑income countries: a systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis.” In: Nature Human Behavior
• Professor Gustavo Carlo: “What Factors Predict Prosocial Behavior during Social Crisis? A Cross-Sectional Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain.” In: International Journal of Mental Health Promotion
• Postdoctoral Scholar Daman Chhikara: “The Effects of Student–Teacher Ethnoracial Matching on Chronic Absenteeism: Exploring the Role of Relational Dynamics in Early Education.” In: Early Education and Development
• Doctoral Student Jaeyoon Choi: “Bias or Insufficient Sample Size? Improving Reliable Estimation of Algorithmic Bias for Minority Groups.” In: LAK ‘25
• Doctoral Student Jaeyoon Choi: “The Difficulty of Achieving High Precision with Low Base Rates for High-Stakes Intervention.” In: LAK ‘25
• Distinguished Professor Greg Duncan: “The Effects of Monthly Unconditional Cash Support Among Latina Families.” In: National Research Center On Hispanic Children & Families
• Doctoral Students Joseph Hin Yan Lam and Jiali Wang, Postdoctoral Scholar Danyang Wang, Assistant Specialist Jissel Anaya, and Professor Elizabeth Peña: “Spanish and English Morphosyntax Changes in Bilingual School-Age Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder: A 1-Year Longitudinal Study.” In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
• Doctoral Student Jonathan Montoya and Associate Professor Andres Bustamante: “Looking Beyond Fiddlers Green College: Social Justice in Workforce Engineering Education Pathways.” In: International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE)
• Assistant Professor Nia Nixon: “Psychological Science and the Blind Spot in Education: Learning and Instruction of Transversal Skills in the Twenty-First Century.” In: Educational Psychology Review
• Doctoral Student Roushanac Partovi and Professor Gustavo Carlo: “Longitudinal within-and between-person effects of school discrimination on US Latino/a adolescents' prosocial behaviors.” In: Developmental Psychology
• Professor Elizabeth Peña: “Fill in the Blank: English Morphosyntax Production in Matched Bilingual Groups.” In: Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
• Professor Kylie Peppler: “Adopting Backward Design into a Constructionist Curriculum Design for IoT Skill Development in High Schoolers.” In: CHI EA ‘25
• Doctoral Student Sina Rismanchian and Assistant Professor Shayan Doroudi: “The Evolution of Research on AI and Education Across Four Decades: Insights from the AIxEd Framework.” In: International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education
• Project Scientist Tamara Tate, Doctoral Students Daniel Ritchie and Waverly Tseng, and Distinguished Professor Mark Warschauer: “Incorporating generative AI into a writing-intensive undergraduate course without off-loading learning.” In: Discover Computing
• Chancellor’s Professor Emerita Deborah Lowe Vandell: “Promoting classroom quality through professional development: Results from the Oslo early education study, a randomized controlled trial.” In: Studies in Educational Evaluation
• Professor Julie Washington: “Addressing Bias in Spoken Language Systems Used in the Development and Implementation of Automated Child Language‐Based Assessment.” In: Journal of Educational Measurement
• Doctoral Student Taylor Wycoff and Professor Sandra Simpkins: “Centering Culture in Program Quality: Charting the Associations between Culturally Responsive Practices and Latine Adolescents’ Basic Needs in a U.S. Math After-School Activity.” In: International Journal for Research on Extended Education

Learn more about the UCI School of Education as seen on Viewpoint, hosted by Dennis Quaid