Research

Worldwide, there are increasing efforts to better understand the performance of buildings and infrastructure under a wide range of events, from accidental to deliberate, fire to natural hazards, climate change to terrorism. There is also an increasing focus on understanding the perceptions and responses of people to these events. This knowledge can then be employed in developing technology and policy solutions that better meet societal expectations for building and infrastructure safety and performance, resulting in a better allocation of resources focused on critical needs.

I am interested in the COMPUTER SCIENCE and ENGINEERING perspective of learning technologies. I have created artificially intelligent tutoring software that models students knowledge and affective states, from behaviors and physiological sensors, as students use the software; I have used data mining and statistical methods to empirically model student mental/affective states from past student data.

I deeply enjoy teaching, in particular conveying the important roles played by plants. It is a great reward when my students realize that plants are more complex and interesting than they anticipated, and they want to learn more. I enjoy that students at WPI are open about thinking in new ways; this critical thinking is the result of intense project-based learning.