Kay Brocato Chair Kay Brocato is an Associate Professor of Education Foundations. She has worked with underserved children and families of the rural south as a faculty member since 2002. Her interviews, focus group discussions, home and classroom observations, plus data from use of State and Trait anxiety instruments and other anthropomorphic measures with her service participants has revealed that language acquisition, vocabulary attainment, and fluency of spoken word can serve to facilitate significant up-ticks in high quality descriptive experiences of school programs for learners and family members. Early on, Brocato was able to recognize data trends that impacted high school completion for those participants who were displaying particular language activation patterns consistent with a learner's ability to socially engage in specific ways and to thickly and richly describe emotional paradigms, similar to the findings of Immordino-Yang and colleagues. Her work at the cross sections of Classroom Management, Learning Studios like those with in the Montessori Method, and Social-Emotional engagement has brought Brocato to the Brain, NeuroScience, and Education SIG of AERA. Brocato has attended formal fMRI training provided by neuroscientist from Virginia Tech, Harvard School of Medicine, and University of Georgia. Brocato is connected to cutting edge Neuro-science research through the AERA Brain, Neuroscience, and Education SIG plus connected organizations like IMBES and the Center for Educational Neuroscience seminar series broadcasts. Kay can best be reached by text message to +16623129703 in WhatsApp, WeChat, or SMS Messaging.
kaybrocato@icloud.com
Yu Zhang Program Chair Dr. Zhang Yu currently serves as a Professor and the Vice Dean at the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University with distinct dissertation award. Recently, her work has primarily involved interdisciplinary studies that integrate cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence technology. Her work focuses on educational neuroscience in real classroom and attempts to re-examine key educational concepts and theories from the neuro-perspective, such as engagement, cognitive load, student-teacher interaction, collaborative learning, and aesthetic education. She has authored over 60 scholarly articles in prestigious journals including Computers & Education, pj Science of Learning, and Learning and Instruction, accumulating more than 1,200 citations. Her research has been supported by over 20 grants from distinguished sources such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Foundation. Her contributions have earned her prestigious national awards. She also holds the position of Vice Chairman at the Education Evaluation Committee of the Chinese Society for Educational Development Strategies.
zhangyu2011@tsingua.edu.cn
Naomi Malone Secretary
Dr. Naomi Malone is a dedicated educator and researcher with a passion for integrating neuroscience, education, and technology to enhance learning experiences. With a Ph.D. in Instructional Technology and Design from the University of Central Florida, she has led various projects focused on competency-based education and the application of learning sciences to distributed learning systems. Dr. Malone has a proven track record of using evidence-based strategies to design impactful educational programs, and she is particularly interested in how brain science can inform teaching practices. As a representative of the Brain, Neuroscience, and Education Special Interest Group for AERA, she looks forward to collaborating with professionals in the field to explore innovative approaches to education.
grokkar@gmail.com
Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa Treasurer
Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa has roots in teaches a course at the Harvard University Extension School entitled Neuroscience of Learning: An Introduction to Mind, Brain, Health and Education. She is the Associate Editor of the Nature Partner Journal Science of Learning and is currently an educational researcher currently living in New York. She is a former member of the Organisation For Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) expert panel to redefine Teachers’ New Pedagogical Knowledge which determined teacher need more training in Technology and Neuroscience. Tracey is the founder of Connections: The Learning Sciences Platform, which provides free, evidence-based resources to teachers.
Tracey has taught Kindergarten through University and is the former Director of the Institute for Teaching and Learning (IDEA) and Director of Online Learning at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, and founding Dean of Education at the American University in Quito. Tracey also works with schools around the world in 40 different countries, and is currently researching What Kids Want to Know about Their Own Brains for a book for Columbia University Teachers College Press.
Her other research areas include improved indicators to measure educational quality; learning in the digital age; the expansion of the field of Mind, Brain and Education; paradigm changes using appropriate technologies; bilingualism and multilingualism; and the general improvement of teacher training practices in which she has written nine books, several chapters in books, and dozens of indexed articles. Her most recent publications are Bringing the Neuroscience of Learning to Online Teaching, and ThinkWrite: Thinking to Write and Writing to Think.
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." -Attributed to William Bruce Cameron, 1963
traceytokuhamaespinosa@fas.harvard.edu
Sameera Massey Student Representative
Sameera Massey is a PhD candidate in Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning Sciences (CILS) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. She has a combined 18 years experience as a public school teacher and school administrator. Her peer-reviewed publications include examining cognitive load in simulated learning environments and using neuroscience concepts to support teacher's adaptive expertise. Sameera received research awards from the Southwest Educational Research Award (SERA) Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi for her work in MBE. Her dissertation in progress hopes to generate theory about South Texas teachers' practical application of their knowledge about the brain. While she is currently serving as a school administrator, Sameera will continue researching and publishing. Her future goals include researching the effectiveness of MBE to improve teacher practice.
sameeramassey@gmail.com
Luciano Cid Member-At-Large For the past nine years Dr. Luciano Cid has been a tenure track faculty member at Biola University, where he is currently serving as the Director of the Elementary Education Program and an Associate Professor. In this role he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in Educational Psychology, Teacher Preparation, and Bilingual Education. His research foci are the following: classroom management, morality and SEL, diversity in education, and the alignment of objectives with measurement. His journey in tertiary education began as a double major in philosophy and religious studies at the California State University of Fullerton. He then entered a teaching credential program at Chapman University where he also pursued an Master in the field of Teaching. During his time at Chapman, Dr. Cid's action research project focused on the emotional and academic potential that low income and immigrant students could gain if a teacher were to make him/herself emotionally available to them. It was also at Chapman when Dr. Cid was introduced to the interconnection that exists between neuroscience, psychology and education, which led him to want to explore more about it. This desire led Dr. Cid to receive an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the interdisciplinary field of Mind, Brain and Education (MBE). This was followed by a doctoral program at the University of Southern California (USC). His training at USC was mainly in the fields of educational leadership and educational psychology. In addition, he runs a half-million-dollar grant from the state of California. Currently, he is working to co-edit (along Dr. Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa) a 25-35 chapter handbook on the topic of Mind, Brain, and Education (Bloomsbury Publishing). Dr. Cid has served the BNE SIG for the last 4 years both as its program chair as well as its chair. Luciono has made this group a place where community and collaboration abounds.
luciano.cid@biola.edu
Kent Divoll Member-At-Large Kent Divoll grew up in Massachusetts and moved to Texas in 2008. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer and traveling to see friends and family. His wife is originally from Brazil and typically travels there one to two times a year. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in the Curriculum and Instruction Department. As a tenured Associate Professor, Kent teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in classroom management, curriculum and instructional strategies, supervises graduate and undergraduate practicum students, and serves on dissertation committees as a qualitative methodologist, and/or chair. Between his teaching experience, doctorial work, consulting, and college level teaching, Kent has over 25 years of experience in the field of classroom management and teacher education. He has served as the Vice Chair, Program Chair, Chair, and Post Chair for the American Education Research Association’s Classroom Management Special Interest Group. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and History from Westfield State University, a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a literacy specialization from Lesley University, and an Ed.D. in Teacher Education and School Improvement from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Kent’s interests include classroom management, teacher-student relationships, improving classroom instruction, lesson planning, teaching using aspects of the brain, teacher induction, and preservice teacher education.
divoll@uhcl.edu
Kristin Simmers Member-at-Large Kristin (Kris) Simmers is a PhD student at the University of Connecticut, interested in how teachers' knowledge and perception of the brain and learning impact their practice and learner outcomes. She is also a member of the Lab2Classroom lab, collecting and analyzing EEG data to better understand attentional fluctuations in educational settings. Kristin was a teacher for 16 years (in 4 countries) and holds an M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction and M.S. in Elementary Education. As the Graduate Student at Large, she prioritizes making the SIG a high value opportunity for all graduate students and often shares new opportunities and resources to the BNE SIG's Twitter account.
Doctoral Student in Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut
Cognition, Instruction & Learning Technology; CT Institute for Brain and Cognitive Science Graduate Student Affiliate; Science of Learning and Art of Communication Trainee
Pronouns: she/her/hers
kristin.simmers@uconn.edu
Feliza Marie S. Mercado Web Content Editor and Digital Socials Outreach
Feliza Mercado is a doctoral candidate in Instructional Technology at Texas Tech University. She currently holds the position of research assistant at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production (NSF-CASFER), where she contributes to program evaluation and the development of instructional materials. Ms. Mercado's research focuses on the development and design of online learning environments in higher education, specifically exploring strategies to enhance social presence among students through collaborative learning activities. She also has a strong interest in the use of social media for professional development among K-12 educators.Ms. Mercado obtained her Bachelor's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines, in 2013, and she recently completed a graduate certificate in Program Evaluation at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, in 2023.
feliza.mercado@ttu.edu