STEAM Fellows

Tessa Cooper
Tessa Cooper has been hard at work since joining the VITAL Lab team in early 2007. As an undergraduate, Cooper honed her game-building skills with the development of an educational Second Life module, the Nutrition Game. At last year’s Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, Tessa shared her game with middle school and high school students who were alarmed by the amount of empty calories they consume in one day. A graduate of Ohio University’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology with a Bachelor of Science in computer sciences, Tessa has been working with Belpre students as a STEAM graduate fellow since summer 2007. "She is good at developing lesson plans and interacting with kids in classrooms,” VITAL Lab Director Dr. Lui said. Read More...
Bill Young
For third-year integrated engineering doctoral candidate Bill Young, building soccerplaying robots, optimizing NFL draft picks and researching jet engine components have all been a part of his journey in science. Young’s own career path is proof of his assertion that “science is everywhere” – an idea he intends to instill in his eighth grade students at Alexander Middle School. Young’s initial interest in engineering was within the field of electrical engineering, in which he earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees at Ohio University. The 28-year-old has a wide variety of experience in the “real world” of engineering, one of which he said completely changed his perspective about his future. While completing his master’s degree, Young was a part of a Russ College research team who developed cost estimation methods for General Electric jet engine components. It was involvement in this project that gave Young insight into the mindsets behind industrial and systems engineering, which convinced him to study integrated engineering. Since starting with the STEAM project in June, Young has been working on the “Stunt Park” module, as well as developing a game called “Career Exploration.” “I’m really passionate about getting people to realize that they can have a career in science and it doesn’t have to be a stereotypical career,” he said. “There are a lot of exciting careers in science that I think middle-schoolers have no clue that you can do.”
Jason Yerardi
For 28-year-old STEAM Fellow Jason Yerardi, returning to OU to finish his Master’s degree in computer science meant leaving behind successful careers in the software world.“I’ve had two software development jobs and worked as a software engineer and an applications engineer, which is the job I left to accept my STEAM position,” Yerardi said. Southeastern Ohio and Ohio University possess a certain familiarity for Chillicothe native Yerardi, however, despite his extended hiatus from the OU community. He carved out a niche for himself while completing his undergrad degree at OU, receiving both the Outstanding Computer Science Junior and Senior of the Year awards as an upperclassman studying computer science and mathematics. It was Yerardi’s love of mathematics that initially drew him to computer science. These days, however, Yerardi “loves playing around on computers.” Working on the STEAM Project, Jason gets to “play around” more than ever, as he continues work on two diff erent games since joining STEAM in June 2008. The “Stunt Park” game Yerardi has been working on is already getting attention for its ability to use customized question sets. Yerardi is also working on a STEAMiE game that outlines the diff erences between asexual and sexual reproduction methods in species.
Mike Farrell
For 25-year-old computer science graduate student Mike Farrell, creating educational computer games for the STEAM project is not outside the norm of his everyday life. “I’ve been programming videos games since I was roughly 16 years old,” Farrell said. His first games, however, were more focused around shooting the bad guys than his current subject – energy waves. Since joining the STEAM team in June 2008, Farrell has been working “Wave Hero,” a STEAM module that teaches concepts of energy propagation. The game’s twist, however, can be observed in its model -- the wildly popular “Guitar Hero” video game – one that is sure to make “Wave Hero” effective in teaching science concepts, not to mention a big hit among Farrell’s students. It is Farrell’s strong background in game development that makes him such an asset to the STEAM project, as well as what drew him to STEAM in the fi rst place, he said. In addition to game development experience, Farrell has published papers on the topics of medical software development. Farrell, a native of Severna Park, Maryland, graduated from Salisbury College in Eastern Maryland with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and started his graduate career at the University of Virginia. As Farrell began the Master’s program at University of Virginia, feelings of confusion washed over him. “I had to decide whether to persist there [University of Maryland, with a diff erent major], or go to another graduate school and pursue a career in computer science,” Farrell said.
Yanhui Fang
After the great success of the VITAL Lab’s awardwinning, EPA-sponsored P3 game, new STEAM grad fellow and P3 team member Yanhui Fang started to believe in the educational power of gaming technology.“Working on the P3 Project inspired me, and I saw great potential to use computer technology, especially gaming technology, within environmental education,” Fang, who is in her third year as a Ph.D. candidate in integrated engineering, said. “I wanted to learn more about gaming technology so that in the future, I could develop games myself.” Despite being a member of the VITAL Lab’s P3 team, Fang worked mostly within the research eff orts of the game, which focuses on environmental sustainability and chemical exposure safety. As Fang begins developing her fi rst STEAM game,“Labyrinth,” she is faced with challenges in the realm of computer programming. Programming, Fang explains, is a skill she is eager to learn, as well as one that she believes will help her in future endeavors. Fang brings a mindset of deep environmental consciousness to the STEAM project, as well as a desire to share her passion with her sixth grade students at Belpre Middle School. The second STEAM module that Fang will develop is geared toward the topic of energy consumption, she said.“I hope to show my students that improving our environment is not a career or a job to work on,” Fang said. “It should be a theme of our everyday lives that we can improve upon through our lifestyles.”
Juan Flores
While most children would think an engineer drives trains, twenty-five year- old STEAM GK-12 Fellow Juan Flores made a childhood pledge to become a mechanical engineer when he grew up.“When I was a kid in primary school, I used to play baseball,” Flores explained.“My mom always told me, ‘I know you like baseball, but you really need to find something you’d like to study. It would be nice for you to be a professional baseball player, but also get a professional degree. The next minute I was saying, ‘I want to be a mechanical engineer.’ I didn’t even have any idea what a mechanical engineer did! But the more I read about it, the more and more I liked it.” These days, Flores hopes to inspire more of his students to become engineers than baseball players, as he works on the“Career Exploration” module alongside grad fellow Bill Young (in addition his solo development of the “Adventure Park” game). As important as it is for Flores to inspire his students to take their studies seriously, he also wants to encourage them to find a personal passion in life and incorporate it into their studies and eventually, their careers.“I’m trying to motivate my students by showing them how hard I work, but also how much fun I have,” Flores said. Flores’ commitment to his classroom is apparent, but what his seventh grade students at Athens Middle School may not know is that they really were the driving force behind his initial interest in the STEAM project.
Steve Carroll
At the young age of 22, Steve Carroll is virtually a VITAL Lab veteran. He worked at the lab throughout his undergraduate days, developing and programming Second Life content. Now, in the first year of his graduate career in computer science, Carroll changes gears as he jumps headfirst into his new osition as a STEAM GK-12 Fellow. Originally hailing from West Chester, Ohio, Carroll, like many of his peers, stumbled upon computer science by chance. He originally thought that perhaps he’d go into engineering when he grew up, he said. “My first experience with computer science was in high school when I took a computer science class,” Carroll said.“That showed me that computer science was the most interesting to me… It has the problem-solving aspect, and it also allows you to be creative with how you program because there are multiple ways to do anything in computer science.” These days, Carroll’s ambitions for the future reach above and beyond basic computer programming and into a managerial role, he said. He views the STEAM project as a “unique opportunity, a way to stand out among his peers,” not to mention means for furthering his leadership skills and experience working in a team. His main leadership task at hand, of course, will be educating the sixth grade students he teaches alongside Roseville Middle School teacher Tim Taylor.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0538588. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.