Our Team

Dr. Maia Popova

Email:  m_popova@uncg.edu

Post Doc, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska (2019)
Ph.D., Miami University, Ohio (2018)
B.S., Ivanovo State University, Russia (2013)

I was born in Moldova – a small country in Eastern Europe. At the age of 15, I moved to Russia where I finished high school and received my B.S. in chemistry from Ivanovo State University. As an undergraduate student I conducted materials chemistry research, published a first-author paper in Liquid Crystals and their Application, and was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Research President’s Scholarship.

Upon graduation, I moved to the United States to earn my Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio). Working with Stacey Lowery Bretz, I studied student learning of organic chemistry. These efforts led to seven papers, including five first-author publications in the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry Education Research and Practice. One of my publications received the prestigious ACS Editors’ Choice Award, and two others were featured on the covers of the Journal of Chemical Education and MDPI Materials.

After earning my Ph.D., I joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a postdoctoral scholar working with Marilyne Stains I characterized the teaching beliefs and instructional practices of chemistry faculty across different institutions in the US. This work resulted in four papers, including two first-author publications, in Chemistry Education Research and Practice and CBE—Life Sciences Education.

Having had all these great opportunities, I am excited to leverage my knowledge and skills to establish an impactful research program at UNC Greensboro!

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Current Students

Former Members

• Elizabeth Cieza - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from June 2022 until June 2024. Project: Understanding the experiences of marginalized women pursuing Ph.D. in chemistry. Co-author of doi.org/10.1002/tea.21986.
• Carly Beck - Undergraduate Researcher. Member of the group from June 2022 through August 2023. Project: Students’ Reasoning about Representations of Molecular Structure. Co-author of doi.org/10.1039/D4RP00030G.
• Zoe Edmonson - Undergraduate Researcher. Member of the group from June 2022 until June 2024. Project: Inorganic Chemistry Instructors' Beliefs, PCK, and Practices for Teaching Symmetry.
• Qyanna Porter - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from January 2022 through December 2023. Project: Machine Learning for Automated Analysis of Students’ Explanations of IR Concepts.
• Madeline Downs - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from January 2022 through June 2023. Project: Machine Learning for Automated Analysis of Students’ Explanations of IR Concepts.  
• Sara Arevalo - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from December 2021 through December 2023. Project: Qualitative Analysis of Students' Reasoning about Representations of Molecular Structure.
• Rebecca Boadu - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from November 2021 through June 2024. Project: Representational Competence Literature Review  
• Dan Kunath - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from November 2021 through December 2022. Project: Eye-tracking of Student Visual Processing Behavior when Translating between Representations of Molecular Structure.
• Mary Grace Miller - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from October 2021 until May 2022. Project: Understanding the experiences of minoritized women pursuing Ph.D. in chemistry.
• Allison Delgado - Visiting summer student from Forsyth Technical Community College in Summer 2021. Project: Literature Review of Studies on Chemistry Textbooks.
• Jada Hairston - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from August 2021 through February 2022. Project: Representational Competence Literature Review.
• Han Nguyen - Visiting summer student in Summer 2021 from Forsyth Technical Community College. Project: Literature Review of Studies on Chemistry Textbooks.  
• Mikah Bass - Undergraduate researcher. Member of the group from May 2021 and until December 2021. Project: Understanding the experiences of marginalized women pursuing Ph.D. in chemistry.
• Cindy Onokalah - Undergraduate Researcher. Member of the group from April 2021 until August 2022.  Project: Qualitative Analysis of Students’ Reasoning about Representations of Molecular Structure  
• Bailey Thompson - Undergraduate researcher. Member of the group from December 2020 through May 2023. Project: Literature Review of Studies on Chemistry Textbooks. First author of doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00385. Co-author of doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c01054.
• Julia Hoang - Post-baccalaureate Researcher. Member of the group from October 2020 until August 2022. Project: Qualitative Analysis of Students’ Reasoning about Representations of Molecular Structure. Co-author of doi.org/10.1039/9781839167782-00036 and doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1371132.  
• Dr. Lyniesha W. Ward - Postdoctoral Researcher. Member of the group from August 2020 through June 2023. Project: Design, Development, and Evaluation of Organic Chemistry Representational Competence Assessment (ORCA). First author of DOI: 10.1039/d3rp00188, doi.org/10.1039/9781839167782-00036, and doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1371132. Co-author of doi.org/10.1039/D4RP00030G.
• Dr. Eshan Gurung - Visiting scholar with Ph.D. in Chemistry from Texas Tech University. Member of the group from March 2020 until August 2021. Project: Evaluating the effectiveness of organic chemistry textbooks for promoting representational competence. First author of doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c01054.
• Kyeyoung (Daniel) Chang - Visiting high school student from Ledford Senior High School – 2020 Draelos Scholar. Project: Evaluating the effectiveness of organic chemistry textbooks for promoting representational competence.
• Grace Loftin - Visiting high school student from the Early College at Guilford - 2020 Draelos Scholar. Project: Evaluating the effectiveness of organic chemistry textbooks for promoting representational competence.
• Robin Jacob - Post-baccalaureate researcher. Member of the group from July 2020 until December 2021. Project: Evaluating the effectiveness of organic chemistry textbooks for promoting representational competence. Co-author of doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c01054.  
• Fridah Rotich - Graduate Researcher. Member of the group from October 2019 through July 2024. Project: Qualitative Analysis of Students’ Reasoning about Representations of Molecular Structures. The first author of doi.org/10.1039/D4RP00030G and co-author of DOI: 10.1039/d3rp00188 and doi.org/10.1039/9781839167782-00036.
• Tamera Jones - Graduate Researcher. Member of the group from September 2019 until June 2024. Project: Different forms of chemistry representation: Faculty teaching with representations and marginalized women's experiences in doctoral programs. The first author of doi.org/10.1002/tea.21986 and doi.org/10.1039/D2RP00173J and co-author of doi.org/10.1039/D0RP00329H.  
• Biannca Jones - Undergraduate researcher. Member of the group from September 2019 until June 2020. Project: Organic Chemistry Instructors’ Beliefs and Practices Toward Developing Student Representational Competence.
• Anastasia Romanov - Undergraduate/post-baccalaureate researcher. Member of the group from September 2019 until December 2020. Project: Organic Chemistry Instructors’ Beliefs and Practices Toward Developing Student Representational Competence. Co-author of doi.org/10.1039/D2RP00173J.