WSU VAuLTS Team

Masha Gartstein

Professor – Department of Psychology
Project Director

Dr. Masha Gartstein, the VAuLTS Project Director, will chair the Steering Committee and oversee all project activities, including evaluations, coordinating efforts with other investigators, SESRC, and external evaluator. She will travel to partner sites to resolve issues that cannot be adequately addressed, otherwise as needed.

 

 

Laura Lavine

Professor and Chair, Department of Entomology
Project Manager

Dr. Laura Lavine Professor and Chair of Entomology. A few of the highlights of her time at WSU include serving as interim Director of ADVANCE at WSU, President of the WSU Association for Faculty Women, and a proud member of the WSU Teaching Academy. Her research interests include the evolution of adaptation, especially concerning the development of the weapons of sexual selection and the evolution and management of insecticide resistance in crop pests. Her research is funded by the NSF and the USDA and she has over 50 publications in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, and Science. As VAuLTS Project Manager, her primary responsibility is coordination with other prior ADVANCE grant-recipient partners, ensuring that their program delivery, evaluation, and outreach/relationship building with community college/undergraduate serving institutions, are progressing.

Joe Hewa

Director, Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership
CO-PI

Dr. Joe Hewa is a Scholarly Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership. He is actively involved in collaboratively developing and facilitating professional development programs such as the Core to Career Faculty Fellowship and the LIFT (Learn. Inspire. Foster. Transform.) Faculty Fellowship, and facilitates workshops and trainings on leadership, communication, and equity. He teaches courses that include Leading Change, Developing Effective Leadership Skills for Graduate Students, Developing Effective Communication and Life Skills, among others. He conducts Community-Based Participatory Research that works toward individual and societal change, and he incorporates Mindful Emotional and Social Intelligence (MESI) into nearly every project he undertakes.

John Schneider

Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
CO-PI

Dr. John Schneider conducts research in the areas of acoustics, optics and electromagnetics; wave propagation and scattering; computer solutions to electromagnetic and acoustic problems; and remote sensing.He has received outstanding teaching and research awards from the school and was recipient of a prestigious U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), where he was recognized for contributions to the field of computational electromagnetics.

Erika Offerdahl

Associate Professor, School of Molecular Biosciences
CO-PI

Dr. Erika Offerdahl‘s research is rooted in modern theories of student learning and employs methodology from cognitive science to systematically investigate the teaching and learning of biochemistry and molecular biology. She runs the ICEBERG Lab, which focuses broadly on the mechanisms by which scientific expertise is developed in students. Dr. Offerdahl is also a Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE) Fellow, where she provides workshops on assessment, facilitative leadership, and systems thinking as well as presenting at national conferences.

Lena Le

Director, Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC)

Dr. Lena Le has over 15 years of experience applying quantitative and qualitative methods to social science research related to tourism, recreation, public land management and other fields. She was appointed Director of the SESRC in May of 2014, having previously served as Director of the Park Studies Unit at the University of Idaho, overseeing survey projects for the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other land management agencies. Dr. Le serves as one of the SESRC’s principal investigators, oversees the management of all projects, and is responsible for ensuring that clients’ goals are met within budget and on schedule. Dr. Le will lead instrument development, and formative data collection and assessment on the VAuLTS Project. She will work with the Project Director, Project Manger, partner co-PIs, and the external evaluator, to coordinate these efforts.

Gregory Hancock

Professor and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
Program Director, Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation (EDMS)
Director, Center for Integrated Latent Variable Research (CILVR), University of Maryland

Dr. Gregory Hancock is Professor and Chair of Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Director of CILVR. His research interests include structural equation modeling and latent growth models, and the use of latent variables in (quasi)experimental design. His research has appeared in such journals as Psychometrika, Multivariate Behavioral Research, Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Psychological Bulletin, British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Review of Educational Research, and Communications in Statistics: Simulation and Computation. He is past chair of the SEM special interest group of the American Educational Research Association (three terms), serves on the editorial board of a number of journals including Psychological Methods and is Associate Editor of Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, and has taught dozens of SEM workshops in the United States, Canada, and abroad. Dr. Hancock will work closely with the Project Director, Project Manager, and evaluation team to assist with data processing and statistical analyses.