Kurt VanLehn, Principal Investigator
Kurt VanLehn is a Professor in the School of Computing and Informatics at Arizona State University. He received a Ph. D. from MIT in 1983 in Computer Science, was a post-doc at BBN and Xerox PARC, joined the faculty of Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985, moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1990 and joined ASU in 2008. He founded and co-directed two large NSF research centers (Circle; the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center). He has published over 125 peer-reviewed publications, is a fellow in the Cognitive Science Society, and is on the editorial boards of Cognition and Instruction, and the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education.
Dr. VanLehn's research focuses on applications of artificial intelligence to education and cognitive modeling. Some of his recent projects are: Andes, an intelligent tutoring system for a full year of college/high school physics that improves students grades by approximate a letter grade and is in daily use around the country; Why2-Atlas and Cordillera, two intelligent tutoring systems that pioneered the use of natural language dialogues for science teaching and have been shown to be just as effective as expert human tutors; Pyrenees, an intelligent tutoring system that successfully caused inter-domain transfer by implicitly teaching a meta-cognitive strategy; and Cascade, a highly accurate cognitive model of human students learning physics that accounts for the interaction of self-explanation and analogy.
Dr. VanLehn's research focuses on applications of artificial intelligence to education and cognitive modeling. Some of his recent projects are: Andes, an intelligent tutoring system for a full year of college/high school physics that improves students grades by approximate a letter grade and is in daily use around the country; Why2-Atlas and Cordillera, two intelligent tutoring systems that pioneered the use of natural language dialogues for science teaching and have been shown to be just as effective as expert human tutors; Pyrenees, an intelligent tutoring system that successfully caused inter-domain transfer by implicitly teaching a meta-cognitive strategy; and Cascade, a highly accurate cognitive model of human students learning physics that accounts for the interaction of self-explanation and analogy.
Jon Wetzel, Dragoon Project Manager
Jon Wetzel is a research scientist at ASU who finished his PhD at Northwestern University in the summer of 2014. His PhD thesis was on CogSketch Design Coach, an AI coach for a first year undergraduate engineering course. His research interests include intelligent tutoring systems and the study of human learning.
Sachin Grover, Computer Science Student, MS
Sachin Grover is a graduate student in the Computer Science program. He joined the Dragoon Project in the fall of 2013. His master's thesis will include designing and implementing an embedded assesment system in Dragoon.
Ritesh Samala, Computer Science Student, MS
Ritesh Samala is a graduate student in the Computer Science program. He joined the Dragoon Project in the summer of 2014.