Background

Michelle is a doctoral student and Institute of Education Sciences fellow in Developmental Psychology working with Susan Goldin-Meadow. She graduated with a B.S. in Psychology, an additional major in Global Studies, and a minor in Arabic Studies from Carnegie Mellon University in 2020. During her time at Carnegie Mellon, Michelle worked as a research assistant and laboratory manager at Dr. David Rakison’s Infant Cognition Lab, where she conducted research on the role of second-order correlation learning in infant language acquisition. She was also granted a summer research fellowship to conduct language education research at the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel with Drs. Yafit Gabay and Avi Karni, and Dr. Lori Holt from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2021, Michelle graduated with an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While at Harvard, Michelle worked as a graduate research assistant for Project Zero’s Global Children project, led by Dr. Veronica Boix Mansilla and Devon Wilson. 

Research Interests

Michelle is interested in exploring communication in different learning and teaching environments across cultures, along with the relationship between language and learning motivation, particularly through conducting cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research.