Hamideh Talafian is a third year Ph.D. candidate in Educational Leadership and Learning Technologies (STEM concentration) at Drexel University. Her research interests focus on students’ motivation in STEM, educational simulations and games, and experiential learning. Since she entered the program, Hamideh has been working with Interim Dean, Dr. Penny Hammrich on two NSF-funded projects on “Experiential Learning” and “Hypothesis-Driven Computational Genomics” which focused on engaging and motivating students in STEM disciplines. She is also working in Games and Learning in Interactive Digital Environments (GLIDE) lab, on an NSF-funded CAREER project with Interim Associate Dean, Dr. Aroutis Foster on designing and implementing educational games.
Hamideh received her Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the top-ranked universities in Iran and has over seven years of teaching experience in a number of schools and English institutes in Iran. She is currently working on a newly funded project aiming to develop STEM career awareness identity exploration among middle school under-representative minorities. As a part of her professional services, she is in the editorial board of the Emerging Voices in Education Journal based in the School of Education which is only for graduate students and is run by graduate students. She is also the reviewer of a number of journals and conferences including but not limited to JXE, NSTA, AERA, SITE, etc.