students for around six years before joining the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is one of the co-chairs serving on the College of Education Graduate Student Conference Planning Committee 2024.

Robin Jephthah Rajarathinam is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, DELTA program. His research focuses on Collaborative Learning, Learning Analytics, and human-centered design within STEM disciplines. His background is in mechanical engineering and education. He is specifically interested in using multimodal learning analytics to understand and develop meaningful collaborative learning experiences for students.

impacts these students as they enter and diversify the workforce or graduate schools. Currently, Fabian works full-time as an Academic Advisor in the Computer Science department serving undergraduate students and hopes to continue his education in a Ph.D. program next year.

Haeryun Kim is a Ph.D. student in Education Policy, Organization and leadership with a concentration in Educational Administration & Leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Haeryun holds a bachelor’s degree in Education and English Education with a minor in Political Science and International Relations, and a master’s degree in Educational Policy & Educational Administration at Chung-Ang University, South Korea. Her research interests are school organizational structures required for equity-focused reform, with an emphasis on principal leadership, teacher labor markets, school finance, and district governance. Haeryun uses quantitative methods to study how to design school personnel policies, distribute school finance, and structure education governance with the goal of respecting learner diversity and ensuring the inclusion of all students. She is currently working on research about school staff hiring committee practices and equitable access for all students to computer science education.

Jae Jun Jong is a Ph. D student in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Previously, he worked as an elementary school teacher and taught various subjects, including English, science, and computer. Due to the previous experience as a teacher, Jae Jun became interested in conducting research on the motivation, attitude, and achievement of STEM students. His current interest includes the effect of language on STEM students’ motivation and attitude toward content. Jae Jun hopes to work in educational settings, to promote students’ learning in STEM by improving students’ attitudes and motivation towards STEM.

Jiadi Zhang is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy Education program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign. She is multilingual and speaks Mandarin, English, Korean, and Japanese. Zhang’s research interests include exploring Chinese-English translanguaging, bilingualism, critical bi-literacies, teacher education, Asian American children’s literature, and language ideologies. Her work is guided by a sociocultural perspective that acknowledges minoritized communities’ daily literacy and cultural practices conducted with different modes and across named languages as legitimate knowledge. She believes the cultural, linguistic and historical knowledge students bring into the classroom could leverage their learning, including academic performance.

Ngan Bich Vu is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy program in the Department of  Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include biliteracy practices of Asian American emergent bilinguals, particularly those of

Pooja Roy is a second-year Master's student in the Mathematics, Science and Engineering program in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign. From her previous experience as a science teacher in India, she grew interest in curriculum and instruction and broadening the scope of understanding science by addressing multiple ways of knowing. Her research focuses on the perspectives of teachers about multiple ways of knowing in science and how best can the teachers be supported through professional development programs, and developing integrative curricula. She has a particular focus on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as another lens of knowing science, distinct from conventional Western scientific methods.

Qianhui (Sophie) Liu is a third-year Ph.D. student in the DELTA program, the Department of Curriculum & Instruction. She has been working on research projects involving educational data mining, learning analytics, AI in education, CS education, and educational games. With a background in information science, she loves to apply data science methods in educational settings to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning. She is currently investigating the implementation of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in education.

Sourabh is a doctoral student in the Digital Environments for Learning, Teaching and Agency (DELTA) program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His research interests span Digital Environments for Math Education, HCI, and Visual Communication. He delves into the intricate ways mathematics is communicated in digital settings, striving to create engaging and efficient learning experiences. Sourabh is passionate about leveraging technology to transform education, believing in its potential to make learning both enjoyable and effective. Despite the opportunities technology presents, he remains mindful of the emerging challenges. His work explores evolving communication modes, focusing on how interactions with technology shape learning connections in the human brain.

Weronika is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in Language & Literacy. She has taught English in middle and high schools, as well as in extracurricular settings and has an academic background in Slavic languages and linguistics. Her research interests include language ideologies, heritage language development, and teacher education. Weronika seeks ways to incorporate multilingual ways of knowing in traditionally monolingual curricular settings to leverage students’ languages and cultures in the classroom.