Dana Miller-Cotto, Ph.D.
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I am an educational psychologist who aims to understand the cognitive and affective mechanisms that underlie mathematics learning and instruction. My research interests span cognitive development, math education, and learning science using longitudinal, experimental, and meta-analytic techniques.
I am broadly interested in understanding the role of cognitive, developmental, and contextual factors that predict educational disparities for traditionally underserved students (e.g., low-income, Black or Latino(a), and students with learning disabilities). My research examines whether children’s early childhood experiences at home and in school promote or inhibit improvement in math and executive functions, or the ability to regulate and control actions and cognitions, and how these experiences differ based on race/ethnicity and family income. I’m also interested in understanding how and why executive functions are related to mathematics skills with the goal of designing learning interventions for students along all ability levels. |
I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Delaware in the School of Education and Human Development collaborating with Dr. Nancy Jordan on a project aiming to understand individual differences in how students understand and learn fractions. Beginning in Fall 2022, I will be joining the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kent State University as a tenure track Assistant Professor. I will be accepting a PhD Student in the 2022 - 2023 academic year.
I earned my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Temple University under the advisement of Dr. James Byrnes. I contributed to developing the Opportunity-Propensity Model, which seeks to explain academic achievement when considering students' classroom opportunities and the assets they bring to their learning environments (e.g. prior knowledge, working memory, identities). This model informs how I design classroom interventions that promote mathematics knowledge and executive functioning skills when considering children's backgrounds and experiences.
I earned my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Temple University under the advisement of Dr. James Byrnes. I contributed to developing the Opportunity-Propensity Model, which seeks to explain academic achievement when considering students' classroom opportunities and the assets they bring to their learning environments (e.g. prior knowledge, working memory, identities). This model informs how I design classroom interventions that promote mathematics knowledge and executive functioning skills when considering children's backgrounds and experiences.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".