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General Information

Full Name Yilang Zhao
Pronouns He/Him/His
Languages English, Chinese

Education

  • 2023
    Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction
    University of Wisconsin–Madison
    • track: Design, Informal, and Creative Education (DICE)
    • minor: Educational Psychology – Learning Sciences
    • advisors: Dr. Matthew Berland & Dr. Mitchell Nathan
    • dissertation title: Tiles, Game, and Coordinate Plane: Exploring Learning Vector Addition Through Concreteness Fading
  • 2017
    M. A. in Media and Information
    Michigan State University
    • track: Human-computer Interaction
  • 2017
    Graduate Certificate in Serious Game Design and Research
    Michigan State University
  • 2015
    B. E. in the Internet of Things
    Wuhan University of Technology

Experiences

  • 2023 - 2025
    Postdoctoral Research Associate
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • Working on the MVP (Mathematizing, Visualizing, and Power) projectm, a transdisciplinary data science education project
    • Leading data collection, processing, and analysis
    • Leading the research team and participating in the curriculum design
    • Establishing solid connections with community partners
  • 2019 - 2023
    Graduate Teaching Assistant
    University of Wisconsin–Madison
    • Teaching course C&I 277 Video Games and Learning for 9 semesters
    • 35 students enrolled in this course per semester
    • Course formats include in-person, synchronous online, and asynchronous online
  • 2017 - 2018
    Research Associate
    Michigan State University
    • Developing Picky Birds 2.0, a language learning game
    • Designing and developing a Japanese poetry learning app
  • 2016 - 2017
    Game Programmer
    Michigan State University
    • Lead developer of Picky Birds, a language learning game

Scholarship, Fellowship, and Awards

  • 2022
    • UW-Madison the Graduate School Student Research Grants Competition ($1,500)
    • UW-Madison Department of Curriculum and Instruction Travel Grant ($1,000)
    • UW-Madison Department of Curriculum and Instruction Research Grant ($500)
  • 2018 & 2021
    • UW-Madison Graduate School Fellowship ($20,864 stipend plus tuition remission)
  • 2017 - 2019
    • Unity Certified Developer (Certificate No. 201703UCD1654)
  • 2016
    • MA Merit Award, the Department of Media and Information, Michigan State University

Academic Interests

  • transdisciplinary STEM education
    • data science education
    • math education
    • computer science education
  • computational research methods
    • natural language processing (NLP)
    • epistemic network analysis (ENA)
    • Gen AI-booster qualitative research methods
    • learning analytics and educational data mining
  • learning sciences
    • embodied cognition
    • constructionism
    • game-based learning

Outside Academia

  • Hobbies: fishing and hiking!