Our Projects

Neuroscience Applications for Learning (NeurAL) Laboratory is a team of faculty and students who use cognitive and social neuroscience methodologies and technologies to explore how people learn. We focus on learners who exhibit a wide range of attentional and cognitive differences, including inhibitory control, spatial ability, working memory capacity and reading ability. Studies are designed using or replicating authentic learning contexts to produce solutions for improving the design and practice of learning and teaching.

Our research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (Science of Learning, Cyberlearning and Future Technologies, GoLife, and Improving Undergraduate STEM Education programs), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the University of Florida (College of Education Research Incentive Fund and UF Research Opportunity Fund). We value collaboration and welcome the opportunity to discuss potential projects with you.

Project LENS: Leveraging Expertise in Neurotechnologies to Study Individual Differences in Multimedia Learning

Role: Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Amount: $765,000

Project LENS focuses on establishing an interdisciplinary collaborative network of scholars that use Electroencephalography, eye tracking, and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy to understand multimedia learning within a diverse population of students that exhibit attentional and cognitive differences.

iDigFossils: Engaging K-12 Students in Integrated STEM via 3D Digitization, Printing and Exploration of Fossils

Role: Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Amount: $1,194,000

The goal of this project is to expand and extend our understanding of integrated STEM learning by designing and testing a model for student engagement using 3D scanning and printing, and computational modeling within a highly relevant but unexplored educational pathway to K-12 STEM – paleontology.

A Simulation-Based Application for Teaching Human Physiology through Guided Discovery, Pure Discovery, and Authentic Research

Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Amount: $247,129

The goal of this project is to develop an online computational simulation enhanced with learning analytics which undergraduate students can use to learn human physiology using both guided and pure discovery, and by designing, conducting and analyzing the results of authentic, simulation-based research.

Building a Comprehensive Evolutionary History of Flagellate Plants

Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Amount: $2,233,768

My role in this project is to design, develop, and evaluate the usability and efficacy of a web-based learning tool (The Flagellate Plant Phylogeny Voyager) and online library of teachable units for teaching flagellate plant diversity and systematic biology using inquiry and hypothesis driven formats.

NeuroSynch: Understanding Collaborative Problem Solving via Research on Team Neurosynchronies

Role: Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: UF College of Education Research
Incentive Fund (CRIF) Amount: $49,823

This grant provided funds to purchase wireless EEG systems and recruit participants for a study that explored the differences between problem solving teams that used an epistemic script as a scaffold and teams that used a social script.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Multimedia Learning Conditions with Dyslexic Learners

Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: UF Research Opportunity Fund (ROF)
Amount: $98,206

This grant supports a study of the effects of two multimedia learning conditions on the cognitive processing, efficacy, and recall performance of a group of undergraduate dyslexic students. This study includes behavioral, neurocognitive, learning performance, and psychophysiological measures.

Cyber-Eye: Empowering Learning through Remote Visualizations using Unmanned Aerial Systems

Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Amount: $58,145

This project focuses on using Unmanned Aerial Systems in Construction Engineering and Management courses to bring remote job-site environments into the classroom and enhance students’ processing of complex spatial and temporal information.