I’m a research scientist at OpenStax, Rice University, where I study how higher ed students learn and what actually helps them succeed.
My work spans two distinct areas: the psychology of STEM education, including how high school and college students develop academic identity, self-efficacy, and persistence; and financial literacy education, where rigorous research is still catching up to a genuine societal need.
I come to these questions from a psychological sciences background, which means I’m particularly focused on research design, causal inference, and measurement. Understanding why something works and not just whether it works is what makes findings useful in practice and ensures that future learning interventions are built on solid, evidence-based conclusions rather than assumptions.
My current projects include expansion of a STEM biographical data measure, a financial literacy education initiative at the college level, and a series of online intervention studies examining how young adults think about and manage money.
Before graduate school, I worked in financial planning and investment analysis and earned a Certified Financial Planner™ designation, a background that gives me a practical lens on individual decision-making and informs all my work.