NLC Research Team at NC State University

She also serves as PI of a research project examining multidimensional profiles of readers who struggle. In addition to two books, her research has been published in Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Language Arts.  She has  co-authored chapters in Literacy research methodologies,  Teaching with the Common Core Standards for English language arts,   Best practices in literacy instruction, and  The new literacies: Multiple perspectives on research and practice.

Carol Pope

Dr. Pope, professor of English language arts and middle grades education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, has been at NC State since 1987. She earned her doctorate at the University of Virginia and was an assistant professor at the University of Houston before coming to NC State. She teaches undergraduate courses in Teaching Writing across the Curriculum and Young Adult Literature, graduate courses in Teachers as Leaders and Trends & Issues in ELA Education. She was the founding editor of the English Education section of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education as well as the founder of the Conference on English Education Technology and Teacher Education Commission. She is a member of the New Literacies Collaborative and focuses her research and practice on preparing the next generation of teachers through active partnerships with middle grades students through multi-modal technologies and approaches.

Steve Amendum is an assistant professor of literacy education in the Elementary Education department at North Carolina State University. He earned his Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Amendum currently teaches literacy courses on literacy research and methods in the elementary education undergraduate, MEd, and MAT programs, and clinical literacy courses in the New Literacies and Global Learning K-12 Reading program. His research focuses on early literacy intervention for struggling learners, literacy issues for multilingual learners, and classroom-based literacy instruction reform efforts. Selected publications have appeared in the Journal of Literacy Research, The Elementary School Journal, Reading & Writing Quarterly, Learning Disabilities Quarterly, and the Handbook of Reading Disabilities Research. As a former K-2 multiage teacher and literacy coach, Dr. Amendum’s research interests are grounded in classroom experiences and exchanges with students and teachers in diverse classroom and school settings.

James Lester

Dr. James Lester recieved his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1994 from the University of Texax at Austin. His research aims include devising intelligent computational systems that can adaptively support human-computer interaction and communication, and applying basic AI research on computational linguistics and intelligent user interfaces to educational software. Specifically, his team at IntelliMedia Group investigate issues related to animated pedagogical agents, explanation generation (both natural language and multimodal), virtual cinematography, and narrative prose generation. In collaboration with colleagues from NC State’s William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, he has focused on the development of advanced learning technologies with an emphasis on intelligent tutoring systems, game-based learning environments, and tutorial dialogue. Dr. Lester currently serves as Editor-In-Chief for International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education.

Meghan Manfra

Dr. Manfra is the coordinator for the undergraduate and graduate secondary social studies programs at NC State. She serves as co-editor for the instructional technology section of Social Education and is an active member in the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the North Carolina Council for the Social Studies (NCCSS), the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Brad Mott

Dr. Brad Mott completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at North Carolina State University. His research has explored the generation of decision-theoretic models of narrative planning for interactive 3D learning environments. He currently works with the IntelliMedia and Liquid Narrative research groups at NC State to investigate the design, construction, and empirical evaluation of computational mechanisms to support intelligent human-computer interaction and communication. He has held positions at Emergent Game Technologies, IBM, Analysts International Corporation, and Nortel Networks. Dr. Mott co-founded LiveWire Logic, a venture-backed enterprise software startup, where he served as the Vice President of Technology and worked with the development team to design, implement, and refine the RealDialog™ product suite — an automated customer service solution leveraging corpus-based computational linguistics.

Kevin Oliver

Dr. Kevin Oliver is Associate Professor of Instructional Technology in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at NC State. He is program coordinator for Instructional Technology and Co-Coordinator for the new Certificate in E-Learning. Dr. Oliver conducts qualitative and mixed methods research on the design and facilitation of Web-based learning environments and is an active member of several evaluation teams at the Friday Institute investigating statewide learning technology initiatives (e.g., one-to-one computing, virtual schooling).

Lisa Hervey

Lisa Hervey, Ph. D., NBCT is a Research Associate at The William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and graduate teaching assistant professor at North Carolina State University. With over 15 years of teaching experience, her work now focuses on the creation and facilitation of both face-to-face and online professional learning opportunities around K-12 digital conversion and the development of educators’ Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK). In addition, Dr. Hervey provides content support for a national online community of practice, epic-ed, that assists stakeholders charged with planning and implementing technology-enabled learning initiatives in K-12 schools. Contact her @ lisa_hervey@ncsu.edu

  Jon Rowe

Jonathan Rowe is a Doctoral Student in North Carolina State University's Department of Computer Science. His research focuses on computational models of interactive narrative and intelligent game-based learning environments. Jonathan has served as a research assistant on the NSF-funded projects Crystal Island and Narrative Theatre. Previously, he served as a research intern at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, where he worked on the ReQUEST story authoring support tool. Jonathan has been recognized with a 2006-2008 NCSU Graduate Dean's Fellowship, as well as a Best Paper Award from the 2008 International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. In addition to his research, Jonathan served for several years as a teaching assistant in the NCSU Department of Computer Science, and currently mentors undergraduate students through the NSF-funded STARS Academic Alliance. Jonathan regularly teaches a weekend course on Design and Programming for Video Games for the Duke University Talent Identification Program.

Erin Lyjak

Erin Lyjak is a research associate at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, working on the New Literacies Collaborative project. She received her Master's degree in Experimental Psychology from Radford University. Erin has been in the field of educational research for over 10 years. Prior to joining The New Literacies team, she worked on a wide range of educational studies, including school violence prevention, standardized testing, PISA , and chancellor reviews.

  Meixun (Sinky) Zheng

Meixun Zheng (Sinky) is an adjunct professor at the University of the Pacific and a recent graduate of the Literacy doctoral student in Department of Curriculum & Instruction at NC State University. She is conducting research in literacy and language arts education, with a focus on technology integration. Specifically, she is interested in how Web 2.0 technology tools, e.g. educational blogs and social networking sites, can be applied in classroom instruction. She was part of the NSF-funded Crystal Island-5 project which aims to enhance K-5 students¡¯ science learning, problem-solving, and critical thinking in a game-based learning environment.