Dr. Allison Jaeger Lab
Research Team
Allison Jaeger - Lab PI
Allison earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015 and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Spatial and Intelligence Learning Center at Temple University from 2015-2018. Her research interests include examining tools and strategies for supporting student learning in STEM. In particular, she looks at expository text comprehension and the impact of generative learning activities such as explaining and drawing.
Email: ajb1193@msstate.edu
Allison Jaeger Berena
Lab Director
Assistance professor
Graduate Coordinator
Cognitive Science
College of Art and Sciences
Mississippi State University
Dr. Jaeger earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015 and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Spatial and Intelligence Learning Center at Temple University from 2015-2018. Then she became an assistant Professor at the department of Psychology at St. John’s University from 2018-2022. Later she joined to the department of Psychology at Mississippi State University in 2021 and since then she is an assistance professor at MSU. She also is current graduate coordinator in Psychology Department ate MSU.
Her research interests include examining tools and strategies for supporting student learning in STEM. In particular, she looks at expository text comprehension and the impact of generative learning activities such as explaining and drawing.
Graduate Students
Sepideh Jafari Zaveh
Hi, I am a PhD student in the Cognitive Science program at MSU. Considering my research interests, I am deeply interested in understanding how students monitor and regulate their learning and problem-solving efforts. My research broadly explores the roles of cognition and metacognition in STEM learning and problem solving. Specifically, I focus on cognitive processes such as working memory and spatial thinking, as well as metacognitive aspects—particularly metacognitive monitoring. Through this work, I aim to uncover how these cognitive and metacognitive factors influence students' ability to learn effectively and solve complex problems.
Zhaocheng Wu - Graduate Student
Hi, I am a PhD student in the Mississippi State University Cognitive Science program. My research focuses on text comprehension, particularly evaluating instructional methods and examining students’ understanding after learning text comprehension strategies. I'm also interested in investigating how spatial thinking ability influences text comprehension. Outside the lab, I am a big fan of hiking and enjoy exploring nature!
Previous Research Assistances
Nguyen Phuc Xuan Nhi - Graduate Research Assistance
Hi, I am a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Science program at MSU. My research focuses on the cognitive processes involved in mathematical word problem solving, particularly how individual differences in working memory, reading comprehension, and spatial ability influence performance. I am especially interested in how these abilities affect the interpretation of problem text, mental representation of mathematical relationships, and solution strategies. A key aspect of my work examines how drawing serves as a cognitive tool to support problem solving by externalizing information and reducing working memory demands. I aim to understand how the effectiveness of drawing varies across learners and how it can be used to support students with diverse cognitive profiles, ultimately informing more effective instructional practices in STEM education.
Tanner Mckenzie Grubbs - Graduate Research Assistance
Hi, I am a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Science program at MSU. My research largely focuses on the interaction between digital technology and memory, but my main line of research examines how people encode, store, and retrieve visually manipulated or fully AI-generated content, with a focus on how such visuals affect not only memory accuracy but also metacognitive evaluations and decision-making. I am also interested in how AI-generated warning labels are remembered over time as well as effective ways to intervene and correct exposure to image-based misinformation through AI-generated images.
Undergraduate Research Assistances
Lab Alumni
Campus Address:
Hardy Road, Rice HallMississippi State, MS 39762
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 6161
Mississippi State, MS 39762