Campus Liaison Spotlight: Meet Teya Rutherford

Name: Teya Rutherford

Hometown: Miami, Florida

Current university: University of California, Irvine

Program: Learning, Cognition, & Development

Advisor: George Farkas

Graduation year: Spring 2014

Hobbies: Photography, Theater, Reading, Spending time with my family

 How did you decide to go to graduate school?

After multiple careers (teacher, photographer, lawyer), I kept coming back to questions about what motivates people and why they make the decisions they do. I decided to go to graduate school to work on answering these questions. Although my research focus has evolved along the way, I'm still inspired by related questions every day.

What did you do before going to graduate school?

I taught, I went to law school, I had a family, I was a portrait photographer.

What do you like best about your program/school?

My program is very interdisciplinary: I work with economists, sociologists, and psychologists. Finding common ground helps us focus on the core of the problems and questions which results in work that is better translated to policy-makers and practitioners.

What are you current research interests?

Individual differences and their role in mathematics learning as well as the design and evaluation of educational interventions, especially in digital environments.

 What is your favorite article and why?

There are too many articles I value to pick a favorite, but lately I have have been keeping handy Hill, Bloom, Black, & Lipsey's (2008) Empirical Benchmarks for Interpreting Effect Sizes in Research. Their benchmarks really put intervention results in perspective.

       

What was your proudest moment or greatest accomplishment?

After finding my way to a PhD program after a number of other careers, I consider it my greatest accomplishment that I come to work everyday to do something that I love.

Thanks for your participation Teya!