She received her Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Technology Design with a specialization in Science Education from Stanford University. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on designing and studying innovative technologies that can support English learners and language minority students in developing a coherent understanding of complex scientific phenomena. Funded by the Spencer Foundation and UNC-Chapel Hill, her current research explores how different types of visualizations in web-based inquiry instruction can improve science learning for both English learners and their English-proficient peers in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms.