My research interests are located at the intersection of physics education, conceptual learning, assessment, and instructional design. I am particularly interested in how students understand abstract physical concepts and how teaching strategies can be designed to address conceptual difficulties more effectively.
Rather than treating learning as the passive reception of formulas, I am interested in how students construct meaning, interpret representations, and connect mathematical structures with physical ideas.
Physics Education Research investigates how students learn physics, how conceptual difficulties emerge, and how instruction can be improved through evidence-based methods.
My interest in this field is connected to the study of student reasoning, diagnostic assessment, curriculum design, and instructional strategies that promote conceptual understanding rather than superficial memorization.
Quantum mechanics presents deep conceptual and mathematical challenges for students. Topics such as superposition, measurement, uncertainty, operators, eigenstates, probability amplitudes, and spin often require students to rethink classical intuitions.
I am interested in how students interpret these concepts and how instruction can help them build more coherent and productive ways of reasoning about quantum systems.
Quantum information science introduces students to concepts such as qubits, quantum states, superposition, measurement, entanglement, and quantum circuits.
My interest lies in how these ideas can be taught at an introductory level and how students connect the symbolic, conceptual, and computational representations used in this field.
Formative assessment can help identify students' conceptual difficulties during the learning process, rather than only measuring performance after instruction has ended.
I am interested in assessment practices that reveal student reasoning, diagnose misconceptions, and provide instructors with evidence for adapting instruction.
Interactive tutorials can guide students through conceptual challenges using structured questions, reasoning prompts, feedback, and progressive refinement.
I am interested in the design and evaluation of tutorial-based materials that support conceptual change and deeper understanding in introductory physics.
Curriculum design plays a central role in how students encounter and organize physics concepts. I am interested in how introductory physics curricula can be redesigned to better integrate conceptual understanding, mathematical reasoning, and active learning.
My undergraduate capstone project marked the beginning of my interest in research on the teaching and learning of quantum physics. By developing a digital learning environment for high school students, I became interested in how learners build conceptual understanding of non-classical phenomena and what difficulties emerge when they interpret ideas such as wave-particle duality, uncertainty, superposition, the wave function, and quantum measurement.
My current research direction builds on this initial experience by moving from the production of instructional materials toward evidence-based research on student reasoning, formative assessment, curriculum redesign, and the development of interactive tutorials in introductory quantum mechanics and quantum information science.
Formative assessment and interactive tutorials to mitigate misconceptions in introductory quantum mechanics and quantum information science.