Inside IES Research

NCSER is grateful for our student interns, who come to us through the U.S. Department of State’s Virtual Student Federal Service Program. These interns are volunteering their time to support NCSER in data science and open science. Data science interns mine data from IES grants and related publications and create visualizations to represent what IES has funded and learned. Open science interns use their talents to help us understand and communicate about research in special education. We are pleased to introduce each of the 2023-24 academic-year interns here.

Data Science Interns

Diamond Andress

I am a PhD student at George Mason University, deeply committed to informing education policy and addressing gaps in the field, particularly concerning individuals with learning disabilities. My academic journey has been profoundly influenced by extensive research experiences at George Mason University and the International Leadership of Texas charter school, where I delved into critical aspects of education policy, including ethnicity, race, bilingual status, SPED/504 status, and student achievement.

My ultimate career aspiration is to become an educational researcher specializing in enhancing student achievement and advocating for policy reforms. I am particularly drawn to this internship opportunity with NSCER/IES due to my unyielding passion for data-driven solutions in education. This internship provides a unique platform for me to gain hands-on experience in analyzing data and collaborating with experts, which are instrumental in uncovering systematic educational gaps and contributing to policy enrichment.

Fun Fact: I find solace in the art of photography and the enrichment of travel experiences. My collection of SD cards holds cherished moments from my international teaching endeavors in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and Guinea, underscoring my broader commitment to fostering inclusive and equitable education for all.

Kevin Navarrete-Parra

I am a PhD student studying political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I take part in rewarding research methods and data science education every semester. My exposure to quantitative research began long before graduate school. I started this journey by taking my first research methods class and working as a research assistant as an undergraduate student. Once I officially enrolled in graduate school, the data science bug bit me—I felt compelled to learn as much as possible about the fascinating world of data and research! This passion and my cumulative experience handling data prepared me for the NCSER data science internship.

My goal for the future is to refine my data science skills so I can work with data that make tangible impacts on the world around me—a plan I am one step closer to achieving thanks to this fantastic opportunity with NCSER. Indeed, this is precisely why I applied to this program: I know that by supporting NCSER's rigorous research program, I can make a difference in something that is pressing and important.

Fun Fact: I love watches. I recently began collecting watches, but my horological passion started years ago when I got my first Timex in high school.

Marissa Kuehn

I am a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Toledo. I am pursuing bachelor’s degrees in disability studies and data science, with a minor in computer science. Previously I have conducted and presented research on understanding the neurodiversity paradigm and movement. I was the recipient of the Patricia Murphy Scholarship from the disability studies department, and I am the co-founder and president of the university’s Disability Student Union. My past work experience as a research assistant on the Plain Truth Project, coursework in data science, lived experience of disability, and long-time passion for disability justice led me to this internship.

I am excited to apply my developing data science skills and passion to learn more about disability research and improve my research skills throughout this internship. I am interested in improving the representation of the disability community in data science and making data more accessible. This internship will allow me to synthesize my data science and disability studies skills and enabling me to seek out more opportunities to do so in the future.

Fun Fact: I am a Trekkie! My favorite characters are Seven of Nine and Data.

Open Science/Communication Interns

Shanna Bodenhamer

Howdy! I am finishing up my last year as a PhD student in educational psychology with an emphasis in special education at Texas A&M University (whoop!). Prior to starting my PhD program, I had various roles in the public school system, working as a special education teacher, a board-certified behavior analyst providing behavioral training and support to teachers, and a program facilitator overseeing the implementation of a state-funded autism grant for an early childhood intervention program. After graduation, I would like to be a faculty member in higher education. 

I’m returning as a second-year virtual intern with NCSER because I learned so much during my previous internship. It gave me the opportunity to speak with researchers across the nation about their research projects and how this work can improve the experiences of students with disabilities. I was able to share this research through social media and blog posts, ensuring that evidence-based practices are accessible to everyone, especially key stakeholders. I’m excited to be part of all the great things happening at NCSER and look forward to another year!

Fun Fact: I like to spend time at the lake with my family. Sometimes we wakesurf, but mostly, we just relax and float around. Luke, our Labrador, loves to swim in the water, but our puggle, Leia, prefers to sunbathe on the boat!

Skyler Fesagaiga

I am pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at the University of California, San Diego, where I plan to develop my quantitative research skills to participate in special education policy analysis. Before attending graduate school, I worked as a licensed behavioral therapist and as a research assistant at Southern Utah University on a project that evaluated parental empowerment with children with disabilities before and after the introduction of elementary school.

With my research interests, IES was a perfect fit for me. Through this internship I hope to develop refined verbal and written communication skills that support my future goals and learn as much as possible about special education research through exposure to IES-funded projects. I plan to further my education as a doctoral student to reach my long-term goal of becoming an expert in inequality and social policy in education. 

Fun Fact: I enjoy collecting rings with different types of gemstones from antique stores! 

Sarah Brasiel, NCSER program officer and primary mentor for the data science interns, and Amy Sussman, NCSER program officer and primary mentor for the open science interns, produced this blog.

NCER student volunteer, Rachael Higham, has long been interested in writing instruction. She currently works as a remedial language tutor for high school students with disabilities, and she began her graduate studies with a focus on postsecondary writing instruction. To learn more about the current science and research on writing, Rachael interviewed Dr. Charles MacArthur about his research-based postsecondary writing curriculum, Supporting Strategic Writers (SSW), which he and his team developed and evaluated through IES grants. The goal of SSW is to foster metacognitive self-evaluation through the use of strategic learning and genre-based pedagogy to help improve writing skills and self-confidence.

Take a minute to answer this question: Do you remember how you were taught to write a paper in high school or in college?

Maybe you remember the five-paragraph essay, MLA formatting, or the RACE strategy, but were you ever taught specific strategies for planning and evaluating your papers?

While I was interviewing Dr. MacArthur about his recently completed IES project, he posed a similar question to me. He asked me how I navigated writing in college and if a teacher had ever explicitly taught me how to write. I realized that while I had some explicit teaching in text structure in high school, by the time I reached college, I relied heavily on feedback to inform my future writing. The idea that students learn from revising is a common view in writing education. However, this view does not always consider students who struggle with writing and who may need more explicit instruction, even in college.

As a teacher of high school students with learning disabilities, I often find that by the time many of my students reach my classroom, they feel defeated by the writing process. Writing is something that has become a source of fear and dread for them. My goal with each student is to find and develop strategies that bolster their writing skills and change writing from something that seems unattainable to something that they can do independently. I was excited to talk to Dr. MacArthur and learn more about the research that he and his have been doing. Below are his responses to the questions I posed.

What are the key components of the SSW curriculum?

The emphasis of SSW is to enable students to take control of their own learning through rhetorical analysis of genre. To do that, students are taught explicit strategies and cognitive procedures based on what good writers do. This is reinforced with metacognitive strategies that help students become aware of why they are using specific writing strategies and procedures and recognize how and when to transfer them to other classes. SSW places emphasis on genre-based strategies not only in the text but also in the planning and evaluation phases.

The heart of strategy instruction in SSW is the “think-aloud,” which is when instructors share, in real time, the thoughts that they are experiencing as they’re writing or editing a text to show how they are figuring things out. Instructors need to show—not just explain—how to write. What we writing instructors are teaching is invisible, so the think aloud makes the process visible to students. It also lets students see that writing is hard even for their teacher. Teachers can get stuck and need to work through it based on the strategies that are being taught.

What is the number one thing that you would tell a developmental or first-year writing teacher?

Teaching strategies to students on planning and evaluating their work helps improve writing. There have been hundreds of studies from K-12 (see these meta-analyses as examples 1, 2, 3) that show how strategy instruction works to improve writing. This experimental study of SSW adds to that literature and shows that strategic instruction with genre pedagogy can work in the postsecondary developmental writing environment.

What type of future research would you like to see done with the SSW curriculum?

There is a wealth of valuable research that could be done in the future. Future research could delve into how to build on the developmental course’s gain in subsequent courses. For example, it would be interesting to look at the transition between developmental writing courses and first-year composition in terms of pedagogical integration.

Another area of transfer is between compositions courses and disciplinary writing in postsecondary settings. For example, how could postsecondary institutions improve writing across the curriculum? How could strategy instruction similar to SSW work in this setting?

Additionally, strategy instruction started in special education, but it was found to be useful throughout the entire K-12 population. Similarly, SSW was found to be successful in developmental writing classrooms. It would be great to see the effects of SSW in first year composition classes.

You can find publications from this project and the earlier SSW project in ERIC here and here respectively. The What Works Clearinghouse also reviewed an earlier evaluation of the SSW here.

This blog was written by Rachael Higham, a graduate intern through the Virtual Student Federal Service Internships program, and facilitated by Dr. Meredith Larson (Meredith.Larson@ed.gov), a research analyst and program officer at NCER.

In a continued celebration of Thanksgiving, NCSER would like to express its gratitude to all the student volunteer interns that are giving their time and talents to help us understand and communicate about education research. In our fourth blog about these interns, we are highlighting the NCSER interns who come to us through the Student Volunteer Trainee Program. The interns are working on a variety of different tasks, including writing blogs, helping to revise and update our online abstracts, coding listening sessions, and assisting with various other writing and data analysis projects as needed. Their mentor, Amy Sussman, is proud to introduce the team.

Alysa Conway

I am currently a second-year master’s student in education policy and leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park. I’m interested in the development of college identity for diverse students and research relevant to race, disability, and the law. These interests led to a special interest in assisting with college identity development for students with disabilities, especially students with mental and neurodevelopmental disabilities. I’m committed to education advocacy, including waiving standardized testing, increasing minority enrollment, and altering the diversity education requirements for all undergraduates at the University of Maryland. I have collaborated with educators and community leaders in Washington, DC. for equity-centered professional development strategies. My goals for the future, after receiving my master’s degree, include working at the U.S. Department of Education on postsecondary education issues and pursuing a PhD in student affairs so that I can dedicate myself to developing legal or academic supports for Black students and students with disabilities at institutions of higher education. Through this NCSER internship, I plan to strengthen my professional pursuits by building technical writing skills, gaining a stronger understanding of research, supporting analysis of information through qualitative data coding, and learning more about strategies to improve equity and excellence in education.

Fun Fact: I love cooking! Food is a part of my love language and I love to cook Italian, Asian, and Southern cuisine. I am also a music fanatic with a very expansive palette—I love alternative indie, hip-hop, rap, neo-soul, pop, electric dance, and rock music. My favorite way to enjoy music is with the windows down with a crisp breeze and the sight of the leaves changing.

Isabelle Saillard

I am a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Virginia. My majors in public policy and econometric statistics have contributed greatly to my interest in K-12 education policy, landing me amazing experiences that have prepared me well for this internship at IES. My internships at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Education Office and at the U.S. Department of Education Impact Aid Office have taught me a lot about how federal agencies interact with other organizations. My goals include attending graduate school and working to build stronger cross-agency collaboration to support evidence-based education reform. This internship serves my goals well as I learn about different projects and gain new research skills geared toward studying special education practices. Paired with the mentorship and support of IES staff, I am excited to see where this internship takes me!

Fun Fact: I love the outdoors so much that one morning, I walked 26.2 miles on a whim (from northern VA to DC and back), making me a marathoner.

In honor of Thanksgiving, NCER and NCSER would like to express their gratitude to all of the student volunteer interns that are giving their time and talents to help us understand and communicate about education research. In our third blog about these interns, we are highlighting our diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) interns. These interns come to us through the Virtual Student Federal Service program and are being mentored by Katina Stapleton (NCER).

Audrey Im (she/her)

I am from the Bay Area in California and am currently a UCLA undergraduate majoring in political science and minoring in professional writing and film. Ever since I was young, my dream profession was to be a teacher—the process of sharing knowledge with other people is thrilling for me. I was lucky enough to have great teachers with distinct, effective teaching styles, and I knew that somewhere along the road, I wanted to have the same effect on another generation of students as those teachers had on me. Currently, I am focused on learning how to write in a manner that makes information accessible.

Fun Fact: I love writing poetry! Recently, I've been doing a monthly poetry project where I write a poem using only song lyrics from my favorite tunes of the month. It's been very fun and challenging. I would highly recommend trying it out!

Zaakirah Rahman

I’m currently a senior at the City College of New York pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English education and a minor in sociology. I was born and raised in Queens, so I’ve been a part of the New York City school system for as long as I can remember. This has helped fuel my passion for pursuing education as a career. School has contributed a lot to my life, from teaching me what I know to even being a second home at times. I’d like to give back through being in the classroom myself and enacting real change. I currently work at the New York Public Library as a page, a job that is suited to my love for reading. Additionally, I’m the outreach chair for the New York chapter of an organization called MIST (Muslim Interscholastic Tournament), where we organize an annual tournament with various competitions for high school students. The tournament itself champions helping students bring out the best in themselves, and my role helps me meet all kinds of people to share this experience.

Fun Fact: I love photography and am owner to an ever-growing collection of cameras.

In preparation for Thanksgiving, NCER and NCSER would like to express their gratitude to all the student volunteer interns who are giving their time and talents to help us understand and communicate about education research. In our second blog about these interns, we are highlighting our data science interns. These interns come to us through either the Virtual Student Federal Service program or the Student Volunteer Trainee Program. The interns are working on different data science tasks, such as data visualizations, finding ways to connect publication information from different federal databases to funded NCER and NCSER projects, and helping to understand and improve internal data on research projects. Their primary mentors, Sarah Brasiel (NCSER) and Meredith Larson (NCER), are proud to introduce the team.

Megan Church

I am a senior at William & Mary, pursuing a bachelor’s degree with a double major in data science and psychology. I am a lead researcher at William & Mary's School of Education, focusing on elementary students’ interactions with data. Due to my interest in education research and love of creating data visualizations, the IES data science internship seemed like the perfect fit. I hope this opportunity will give me a glimpse into the inner workings of the research branch of the U.S. Department of Education and help me decide on a future career path.

Fun Fact: I have been to seven concerts this year in six cities, three states, and two countries.

Katelyn Egan

I am pursuing a master’s degree in educational psychology with a concentration in learning analytics through the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I’m looking forward to applying the data science and analysis skills I have learned in my program and learning more about the research goals and initiatives of the Institute of Education Sciences. Previously, I received a Fulbright grant to work with English language learners at a vocational secondary school in Bulgaria for the 2019-20 academic year and worked as a teacher for 2 years in South Africa with the Peace Corps. I have also spent 2 years working in the educational technology industry and hope to continue using data science and analytics to serve K-12 educators and students.

Fun Fact: I play the bassoon!

Juliette Gudknecht

I am pursuing a master’s degree in the applied statistics program at Columbia University. My prior internships at NASA, the U.S. State Department, and my university were among the experiences that helped me prepare for this internship. My goal is to pursue a PhD in special education studying autism spectrum disorder in academic contexts. I applied for this internship to gain critical data analysis skills and learn about the U.S. Department of Education and IES. I hope this experience will allow me to gain the necessary skills to become a qualified researcher in quantitative studies within special education. Thank you to everyone at IES for this amazing opportunity!

Fun Fact: I have my own nonprofit for Autism advocacy!

Rikesh Patel

I am pursuing a bachelor's degree in economics with minor in data science engineering at University of California, Los Angeles. I have honed my analytical and technical skills in working with SharePoint databases in past internships, which led me to this internship. I will be working with internal data to help the research centers gain more insight into their grants and contracts. I fell in love with data years ago, and now I aspire to become a full-fledged data scientist in the future, applying Python, SQL, and other technical knowledges to do my best. One day, I want to help develop a model that helps people all over the world.

Fun Fact: I recently got into traveling. This winter, I'm planning on taking some cooking classes in Greece!

Morgan Tucker

I am in my final undergraduate year at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, studying international political economy and data science. I currently work as a research assistant for UT’s Innovations for Peace and Development Lab, researching the connections between government/agency responsiveness and discrimination towards citizens and am using many different packages, analytics, and visualization tools in R to do so. I previously worked under the U.S. Embassy Amman as a data management intern, where I created tutorials, researched best data management practices, and incorporated feedback to improve data collection, management, and distribution. I also used Python and SQL as a data scientist for the V&A Waterfront marketing team in South Africa, using large data sets, advanced querying, and machine learning to develop consumer profiles. Right now, my main goal is to remain sane as I reach the end of my undergraduate experience. I also hope to stay in Austin and enroll in a master’s programs this fall to further hone my programming skills and work at the intersection of data science and government. With my background in economic development and R programming, this internship opportunity was the perfect mix of both and will be an amazing way to improve my programming expertise and see what my future career may look like.

Fun Fact:  I studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa this past summer. I learned a lot about urban economic development during my time there and can’t wait to visit again!