Post Docs
Rachel Best |
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Rachel Best (Ph.D. 2003, South Bank University, London) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Cognitive Science and Educational Practice. She has recently joined Dr. Danielle McNamara’s research team at the University of Memphis where she is investigating learning from text and reading strategy training. Specific research interests include self-explanation and lexical acquisition. Her doctoral thesis investigated lexical acquisition in naturalistic contexts, including elementary classrooms. She is currently working on two projects, ‘Promoting Active Reading Strategies’ and ‘Coh-Metrix’. |
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David Dufty |
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David Dufty is currently a post-doctoral researcher in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. He is primarily working on the Coh-Metrix project. Dr Dufty received his Ph.D in Psychology in 2002 from Macquarie University, Sydney. His dissertation was on memory representations of discourse. Dr Dufty is interested in all facets of cognitive science, but particularly in psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, and the structural properties of discourse and their psychological impact. |
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Phil McCarthy |
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Philip McCarthy is currently a PhD student, conducting research in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. He is primarily working on the Coh-Metrix project. Philip is scheduled to receive his PhD in English (Linguistics) in spring of 2005. His dissertation is on lexical and textual diversity. Philip's main areas of interest are computational linguistics, cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and second language acquisition. When Philip isn't working at the IIS, he is coaching and keeping goal for the Strangers Soccer Club (GMSA league and cup champions spring, 2004). |
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Yasuhiro Ozuru |
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I am a postdoc at Institute for Intelligent System. I received a Ph. D. at the New School University in 2003. My interest is in language comprehension and cognition. Currently I am interested in two topics: the impact of metacognition on reading comprehension of difficult text and the influence of the quality of questions, in particular multiple choice items, in assessing reader's comprehension and/or knowledge. With regard to these research areas, my research asks questions of how and to what extent readers can control and regulate the comprehension process of difficult text, and what kind of factors influence this aspect of the reading comprehension. |
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Cedrick Bellissens |
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Cedrick Bellissens is currently a post-doctoral researcher
in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis.
He is working on the iSTART and Coh-Metrix projects. Cedrick Bellissens
is a doctor, in Psychology, from the University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence,
France. He received his PhD in 2002. His dissertation was on long-term
working memory and text comprehension and proposed a way to simulate
the intervention of long-term working memory in comprehension in
CI-LSA framework. Cedrick |
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Roger S. Taylor |
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Roger Taylor (Ph.D. 2004, University of Pittsburgh, LRDC) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis and is primarily working on the iSTART tutoring system. His research interests are focused on the theoretical and applied aspects of knowledge acquisition and conceptual change. In particular, he is interested in how the features of an explanation such as its epistemology (e.g. causal relationships, coherence, parsimony, etc.) and discourse structure (e.g. argument structure, elaboration complexity, linearity, etc.) interact with learner characteristics (e.g. interest and motivation, metacognitive strategies, learning goals, etc.) and contribute to learning. |
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Scott Crossley |
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Scott Crossley received his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis in 2006. He is a professor at Mississippi State University where he teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes in second language acquisition, general linguistics, and TESOL approaches and methodology. He has also held various teaching positions both abroad and in the United States. His past research projects include work with conceptual metaphors, genre analysis, structural grammars, and literary cohesion. His current research interests include computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, dialogue structures, conversational agents, multi-modal behavior, and discourse analysis. His research interests at the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis include cognitive processing, text readability, and text cohesion. |
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Graduate Students
Courtney Bell |
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Courtney is a second year MSGP student working on the iStart project. She completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at Mississippi State University in 2003. Her interests include animated pedagogical agents, computer-based learning environments, eye tracking, multimodal communication in animated pedagogical agents, and dyslexia. |
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Stephen Briner |
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Stephen Briner is a graduate student in the MSGP program at the University of Memphis. He recieved his BA in English from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. Currently he assists Dr. Danielle McNamara on the Coh-Metrix project. Stephen conducts research on text cohesion, especially causal cohesion and causal relatedness. Stephen also studies reading strategies, particularly the effectiveness of self-generated questions. |
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Kyle Dempsey |
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Kyle Dempsey is a graduate student who came to the University of Memphis via Lambuth University. Kyle is a MSGP student who is interested in motivation in text comprehension. He is currently working mainly on Coh-Metrix. Kyle hopes to remain with the CSEP lab until completing his PhD. |
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Nick Duran |
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Nick hails from Southern California where he worked with Dr. Curt Burgess in the Psycholinguistics and Computational Cognition Lab at the University of California, Riverside. He is now a first-year student at the University of Memphis working with Dr. Danielle McNamara on the Coh-Metrix and iSTART projects. His interests include language acquisition involving statistical learning frameworks, as well as reading comprehension and discourse processing. He finds that one of the most interesting frameworks in which to study this is in corpora analysis. Nick is also very active in humanitarian work and has served internationally, as well as at home with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. |
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Mike Rowe |
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Michael is a doctoral student in Cognitive Psychology. He has recently completed his Masters degree in general Psychology with a concentration in statistics and Social Psychology. His current research interests lie in lexical ambiguity and disambiguation. |
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Research Assistants
Marianne Dieter |
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Erin Lightman |
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Danielle Steele |
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Adam Renner |
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Staff
Srinivasa Pillarisetti(Pavan) |
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Margie Petrowski |
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