Who We Are

Staff

	Brad Turner - Associate Director, Instructional Innovation Brad's work focuses on assisting instructors with transforming the "traditional" classroom into a more engaging and active learning and teaching space. Some of the many services, projects, and initiatives he works on include Echo360 lecture capture technology, i>Clicker audience response, peer evaluation, classroom video conferencing, iBooks & iTunes U, and untethering from the lectern with mobile devices. Brad also has extensive experience designing and creating multimedia learning and teaching materials, including books, graphics, animations, and knowledge and performance certifications. In his free time, Brad enjoys spending time with his kids, watching movies and T.V., reading, listening to podcasts, drawing cartoons, performing stand-up comedy, hanging out with his dog, and desperately hoping that Sasquatch is real.
	Alexandra Deschamps - Manager, Instructional Innovation Alex Deschamps oversees the Instructional Media Lab; the University’s front-line support for instructional technology use by faculty, lecturers, and teaching assistants. Alex's expertise includes quizzing, grade book, and Excel.
	Sam Anderson - Associate Manager, Instructional Innovation Sam has expertise with active learning tools and spaces, intellectual property, faculty instruction, open source software development, and game-based learning. Sam has facilitated professional development events for several higher ed organizations. Prior to joining the staff at UMass, Sam worked as an academic research librarian.
	Michele Turre - Senior Faculty Support Specialist- Instructional Technology Michele brings her expertise with visual and usability design to the services and projects supported in the Instructional Media Lab. She's part of the Moodle technical team, and is a WordPress (Blogs at UMass Amherst) enthusiast. She leads workshops, writes user documentation, and consults with faculty who are using visual media and online tools in their teaching and research.
	Daniel Canity - Instructional Design & Faculty Support Coordinator Dan draws on experiences in teaching, a passion for technology, and an penchant for trying new technology to support faculty using technology in the classroom. In addition to supporting Echo360, he has expertise in online survey design, quantitative and qualitative data analysis software, and enjoys experimenting with data visualizations and presentation design.
	Xime Vicuna Xime is an Instructional Designer graduated from the College of Education at UMass Amherst. She wants to mix her abilities as a Digital Animator with education to develop interactive educational material that helps teachers to enhance learning in their practice. As a Digital Animator she has expertise with audiovisual projects.
	Ariel Loh - Instructional Design & Faculty Support Coordinator Ariel is the second generation of her Singaporean Chinese family to join the field of Instructional Design & Technology. She loves interactive narratives, avatar/character creation, game-based learning, and project management tools. Her artistic background fuels her fervent support of fellow creatives and she was heavily involved in the handmade craft community of Southern IL (prior to pursuing ID&T), formerly leading TZArtisan.

Consultants

	Nicole Le Roux Nicole is currently enrolled in the International Education doctoral program at UMass Amherst and has a Masters in International Development from Clark University. She has a background in facilitating storytelling using methodologies such as digital storytelling and theatre. Through her work in youth mentorship and reproductive justice she has become inspired by the way technology can be harnessed for organizing and activism that addresses power and inequality.
	Nyari Changamire Nyari is a graduate student in International Education. Her experience as a Teaching Assistant gave her a new appreciation for educational technology as she saw the real positive impact on student learning. Nyari has interest in exploring affordable technology that increases access to reproductive health education for communities in low-resource settings.
	Rosa Medina Rosa Medina is a Ph.D. Candidate in Education in the department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies. She is interested in multimodal and digital tools for learning and professional development.Her research uses multimodal and online ethnography to look into how English language teachers Colombia make sense of and integrate multimodal, digital, and multilingual resources for supporting undergraduate students in a blended program.
	Sadaf Rathod Sadaf is a graduate student in the International Education program. She has worked as a teaching associate in a team based learning classroom and is fascinated by the learning model. She is interested in learning and exploring such new technologies and pedagogies to create socially just classrooms and societies.
	Wooyoung Jee Wooyoung Jee is a second-year doctorate student in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education. For many years, she prepared Korean senior high school students for the Korean national SAT, mainly teaching English reading and test-taking skills in high schools. Last year, she decided to explore a new chapter of her life and joined the doctorate program at UMass. Her research interests are multicultural education and literacy development of English Language Learners. She loves to meet and work with people from diverse cultural and national backgrounds. In the Instructional Media Lab, you will be able to meet consults from all the different continents in the world, including a penguin from Antarctica!
	Pempho Chinkondenji Pempho Chinkondenji is a PhD Student in the International Education Program. She has previous experience providing technological support to faculty and students in higher education, and creating innovative educational resources from social justice documentaries. Her research interests focus on the relationship between gender, education, and development, particularly on women and girls’ education in low-income country contexts.