Meet Our Students and Graduates

“The EMR program has been central to many of the opportunities I have had and the opportunities I am continually asked to be a part of. The program has prepared me with a variety of skills including research methods, analyses, and reporting; measurement theory and analyses; and evaluation theory and methods. This program is exceptional because the EMR faculty are excellent teachers and mentors. The EMR faculty are active in their own research pipelines and encourage students to get involved by applying knowledge from the coursework and/or tailoring a portion of their project to students’ own areas of interest. With a background in music therapy, I was also able to tailor my course assignments to my own field. This program provided me opportunities to work with faculty on their own projects and apply the information I had learned throughout my courses. Through this, I was able to be a part of federally funded grants, connect with other scholars across universities and fields, present at national and international conferences, and publish manuscripts. The EMR faculty are devoted to the success of each of their students and strive to assist each student in their own career goals”.Alycia Sterenberg, 2022

 

 

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  Alycia Sterenberg Mahon

  Alycia Sterenberg Mahon is from Iowa and holds a M.M. in music therapy, a B.M. in music therapy, and a B.S. in psychology. She is a doctoral student in the EMR program with a focus on research methods. Her research focuses on clearinghouses and how they inform clinical practice and policy.

   

   

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  Adedayo Joshua Adeyeye

  Adedayo Joshua Adeyeye is from Nigeria. He obtained both bachelor’ in Education/Mathematics and a master's degree in Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and my EMR interest area is Educational Evaluation and Research.

   

   

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  Aaron Mapondera

  Aaron Mapondera is from Malawi, Southern Africa. Prior to his EMR doctoral studies, Aaron earned a master’s degree in Educational Testing, Measurement and Evaluation from the university of Malawi. Aaron is interested in using quantitative methods to explore issues in assessing student growth, and teacher effectiveness.

   

   

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  Bo Klauth

  Bo Klauth is from Cambodia. He obtained one of his bachelor's degrees in Psychology from Cambodia. He earned master’s degrees in Social Work and Theological Studies from Baylor University, Texas. His interest areas are psychometrics, assessment/ research/evaluation, and statistical programming. His dissertation focus is on evaluating the performance of estimators in SEM and IRT.

   

   

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  Caryn Davidson

  Caryn Davidson grew up in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. She has a bachelor’ degree in English and Environmental Studies from Western Michigan University and a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Maine. Her EMR focus is Evaluation. Her dissertation explores using the social media platform Reddit as a novel and authentic source of data for understanding why teachers leave the teaching profession.

   

   

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  Dea Mulolli

  Dea Mulolli is from Kosovo. She holds a double degree undergraduate in International Business and Economics earned in Finland and Germany and a master’s degree in Educational Leadership obtained at WMU as a Fulbright scholar. Dea works for an NSF-funded grant to improve evaluations of STEM programs. Her research interests include working with large datasets to better understand factors influencing student achievement.

   

   

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  Diane Salinas

  Diane Salinas is from Caledonia, MI. She received her undergraduate degree in Statistics from Michigan Tech University in 1991, and her Master's in Applied Statistics from WMU in 1998. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, MI. She started the EMR Ph.D. program in Jan. 2018.

   

   

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  Dung Pham

  Dung Pham is from Vietnam. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in EMR, she was a lecturer at Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, Vietnam. Her research interests include statistical power and effect size heterogeneity in group randomized trials on educational effectiveness.

   

   

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  Ernest Yaw Amoateng

  Ernest Yaw Amoateng is from Ghana. He earned his Master of Philosophy in Educational Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He is a lecturer at Accra College of Education and in some other Universities in Ghana. His research interest centers on Evaluation, Measurement, and Research in Education.

   

   

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  Fanny J. Hernandez de Alvarez

  Fanny J. Hernandez de Alvarez is from the Dominican Republic. She had been involved in assessments of the Dominican K-12 education system, and evaluations of educational programs and non-profits in the U.S. Her research interest is improving evaluation practices. Her dissertation focuses on the role of evaluation Terms of Reference (TORs) in the quality of final evaluation reports.

   

   

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  Laura Urdapilleta

  Laura Urdapilleta is a passionate researcher and data analyst. Her research interest lies in the intersection of social science research and Artificial Intelligence. Currently, Urdapilleta is working on her dissertation, which seeks to integrate phenomenological data analysis and sentiment analysis into a mixed-methods approach to study human experience.

   

   

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  Najat Elgeberi

  Najat Elgeberi is originally from Palestine and currently serves as an evaluation specialist at the University of Nevada Reno-Extension. Her research interest is Evaluation. Ms. Elgeberi has ten years of experience conducting evaluations of humanitarian projects in the middle east and the U.S.

   

   

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  Suhayb Kattan

  Suhayb Kattan has been working for the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) in Saudi Arabia as a researcher since 2011. He received his first master's degree in education policy and practice from Sheffield university in 2010. His main areas of interest focus on teacher and school evaluations. His dissertation aims to present a framework for teacher evaluation in Saudi Arabia.

   

   

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  Wessam Abdelaziz

  Wessam Abdelaziz came from Egypt in 2008 on a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Connecticut with a background in Applied Linguistics. In 2015, he enrolled in the master’s program in EMR and decided to pursue his Ph.D. afterward. His interests are evaluation and language assessment, with a dissertation focusing on investigating the psychometrics characteristics of nationally recognized assessment of language proficiency.