Bio

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Indiana University; until 2013 I was an assistant professor at the University of Richmond, and I continue some research activities there.  Since May 2018, I’ve also been a data scientist at Netflix.

My research investigates the mechanisms of high-level cognition in numerical and mathematical reasoning, particularly focusing the role of perception and action systems, and on the creation of novel interactions help novices reason with symbol systems.  That is, I design interactive situations and games that help people learn, and help people like me learn how people who are learning math learn.

Currently, two main lines of research occupy my time: First, I develop and test an educational touchscreen application intended to teach basic algebra through concrete perceptual-motor frameworks (originally realized in the Algebra Touch program released by Sean Berry, and more recently in the Graspable Math project); Second, I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time lately exploring the use of numeric and graphical representations to compare numbers spanning several orders of magnitude, such as thousands, millions, and billions.

You can read more about my research in my publications. My experiment data is locked right now; if you want access to it, please write me an email.

My CV can be found here.