Current Lab Members

Dr. Matthew Diemer, @ProfDiemer

Professor, Combined Program in Education and Psychology & Educational Studies

Diemer is a developmental psychologist who examines how young people analyze, negotiate, and challenge racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and other constraints in school, college, work, and civic/political institutions. He is particularly interested in how marginalized people develop critical consciousness, which is a careful analysis of societal inequalities, the motivation to produce social change, and participation in social or political action to challenge inequality. His recent work validates a critical consciousness scale and examines how family wealth contributes to intergenerational success.

His research is currently funded by grants from the William T. Grant Foundation, Institute for Education Sciences, National Institute of Health, and the National Science Foundation. He received his PhD from Boston College. Click here to access his Google Scholar profile.

In his free time, Matt hangs out with his family, coaches youth soccer, plays (mediocre) soccer & watches (not mediocre) soccer.

Dr. Wendy De Los Reyes, @wendyjordanam

Dr. Wendy de los Reyes is a T32 postdoctoral research fellow in Developmental Psychology at the University of Michigan, funded through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She received her Ph.D. in Community Psychology from DePaul University in 2023, and is also an aluma of the University of Miami (B.S.Ed. ’13, M.S.Ed. ’16). Her interests include taking an asset-based approach to examining the healthy development of immigrant-origin adolescents, with an emphasis on youth sociopolitical development. She uses a mixture of quantitative, qualitative, and community-based participatory research methods.

Much of Wendy’s work is contextualized by her identity as an immigrant, a Latina, and a first-generation college student. She migrated to the U.S. from Cuba at the age of 6, and grew up in a diverse immigrant community in Miami, Florida.

In her free time, Wendy likes to roam around parks with her two sons, dog-ter, and husband.

Blake Ebright

Blake Ebright is a doctoral candidate in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan. With Dr. Diemer and our UW-Madison collaborators, Blake works on the NSF-funded Citizen Science with Community Partners project. Additionally, he is interested in the critical thinking, self-regulation, and social-interactive skills students learn in college.

Before pursuing graduate studies in the combined program, Blake worked with multiple developmental labs studying Black youth in educational contexts. He is an alumnus of the University of Michigan (BA ’16, MS ’17) where he focused on empathy research as a social psychologist.

Victoria Vezaldenos, @VVezaldenos

Victoria Vezaldenos is a student at the University of Michigan in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology. In 2021 she completed her Education Studies Master’s degree at the University of Michigan with a concentration in Program Evaluation and Implementation Research. In 2018, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Minor in Education Studies. Victoria assisted with research on curriculum development and multiraciality in the context of education within UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. These experiences allowed her to develop her current interests in researching how community, family, and peer environments influence identity development processes in multiracial adolescents and young adults.

In her free time, Victoria enjoys visiting friends and family in her home state of California, spending time with her cat, playing board games, and powerlifting.

Solomon Milner

Solomon Milner is the current lab manager for the AC²ME lab. Solomon graduated from the University of Michigan in 2023 with a B.A. in Communications and English. Their research interests include how intersectionally-marginalized young adults come to understand their identity and achieve critical consciousness, as well as how media non-representation or omission affects the mental health and identity of marginalized groups. They also serve as a research assistant for the Research for Indigenous Social Action and Equity (RISE) Center.

In their free time, Solomon enjoys reading, hiking, beading, and engaging with the Native community on campus through their involvement with the Native American Student Association.

Dr. Andres Pinedo

Dr. Andres Pinedo graduated from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan in 2023. Broadly, Andy is interested in how macro-level processes together with micro-level psychological processes perpetuate or disrupt racial inequality––most often studying this from the perspective of critical consciousness theory. Before coming to the University of Michigan, Andy earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he majored in Psychology and Latin American and Latinx studies.

During his free time, Andy likes to cook, try new beers, drink good coffee, hang out with friends, and discuss politics. He also enjoys traveling but the graduate student stipend makes it tough!

Luis Ignacio Loyola

Luis Ignacio Loyola graduated in 2023 with a Master’s of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan, with a concentration on research for educational improvement. He has extensive experience working with health promotion programs, schools, and non-profit organizations in Chile, aiming to foster adolescents’ critical consciousness and resilience.

Luis Ignacio works at Chañares (www.ch3.org), his consulting firm, assessing students’ English proficiency to improve the teaching of English in Chilean schools. Additionally, his current research projects relate to critical consciousness and preventing risky behaviors among Chilean adolescents.

Dr. Michael Frisby

Dr. Michael Frisby graduated from the Educational Foundations and Policy program at the University of Michigan in 2022. In the ACcME lab, he focused on critical consciousness and structural equation modeling. Michael’s specific research program focuses on the development of critical consciousness in more privileged populations to help recognize systems of privilege and oppression and to foster responsibility to contribute to equitable social change.

Prior to pursuing his Ph.D. in Education Policy, Michael received his Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and his Masters of Science in Statistics from Michigan State University. After completing his Masters, he worked for four years directing the Indiana Statistical Consulting Center for the Indiana University Department of Statistics.

When Michael is not working you can find him exploring new music, enjoying board games, hiking, or playing with his Bernese Mountain Dog, Barrington.

Dr. Emanuele Bardelli

Dr. Emanuele Bardelli received a doctorate in Educational Studies from the University of Michigan where he was a predoctoral fellow in the IES training program in Causal Inference in Educational Policy Research (CIEPR) in 2022. His research interests include teacher professional development, teacher learning, and instructional practices in mathematics education.

Originally from Italy, Emanuele earned a bachelor of science in mathematics from the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, and a master of arts in education and a teaching credential from California State University, Los Angeles. Before beginning his PhD, Emanuele worked both as an instructional coach and as a middle and high school mathematics teacher in Los Angeles and Lodi, California for five years.

Mel Yang

Hyeri “Mel” Yang graduated in 2022 with a Master’s of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan, specializing in Design and Technologies for Learning across Culture and Context. She has practiced as a classroom teacher and a researcher in the K-12 school space in South Korea for more than five years with youths under 18. Before entering the formal school space, Mel served as a student mentor for the student population with multicultural backgrounds and lower socioeconomic backgrounds for three years. After becoming a classroom teacher in a public elementary school, she served as a multicultural and gender equity education department director and a Red Cross Youth leader at her school. With her multiple years of experience in and out of school settings, Mel’s research focuses on how critical consciousness can support and promote agencies for underprivileged youth, particularly those of color, LGBTQI, and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, she has been looking into local K-12 contexts in her research within the Pacific-Rim region, including Hong Kong, South Korea, mainland China, and the U.S., utilizing scholarships in critical pedagogy, critical literacy, feminism, and intersectional theories. Mel aspires to investigate the ways in which marginalized youths with their gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds could agentically re-imagine and act on their educational and everyday experiences via different forms (e.g., data practices, curriculum for critical consciousness). Currently, Mel is funded by the Fulbright Organization as a fellow.

During her free time Mel sips on wine and beer while uploading content to her cat’s Instagram account @ilme_ddakji, plays board games, and enjoys all cat-related activities.

Dr. Josefina Bañales

Dr. Josefina Bañales graduated from the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Michigan in 2020. Her research examines youths’ critical racial consciousness development, or youths’ formation of beliefs, feelings, and actions that challenge racism. Josefina is from Brighton Park—a predominately Latinx immigrant community on the Southwest side of Chicago. Her experiences as a Chicago native heavily inform her research with youth, families, and schools. Her recent work explores the ways in which schools communicate racial messages to youth and how these messages relate to youths’ awareness of societal inequality, anger towards social injustice, and anti-racism in their homes, schools, and communities. Josefina’s work has been funded by the Ford Fellowship Foundation and the Rackham Graduate School.

Dr. Bañales is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. In this position, she explores how youth perceive messages about race and racism from their schools and parents, and how these messages intersect to shape youths’ critical racial consciousness. She also works with youth community-organizing groups to investigate how youths’ involvement in activism shapes their relationships with their families. This work aims to involve youth in the research process through youth participatory action methods.

In her free time, she loves to sing, do CrossFit, weight lift, take walks, and talk with her family.

Dr. Channing Mathews, @returnofthechan

Dr. Channing Mathews graduated from the Combined Program of Education and Psychology (CPEP) at the University of Michigan in 2020. Her research focuses on both the unique and overlapping contributions of Black and Latinx adolescents’ ethnic racial identity (i.e. the developmental process and significance of one’s racial self-concept) and critical consciousness (i.e.awareness, beliefs, and behaviors engaged to challenge social inequity) to their positive youth development. As a postdoctoral fellow at North Carolina State University, Dr. Mathews examined critical consciousness and ethnic-racial identity specifically in formal (classroom) and informal (zoos,aquariums, etc.) STEM learning contexts. She is also interested in improving measures of ethnic-racial identity to support more rigorous psychometric approaches that capture the complexity of ethnic-racial identity development across adolescence.

Dr. Mathews earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with a focus in human development from Duke University (2009) and her Master of Science degree in Psychology in 2017 from the University of Michigan. Upon completing her PhD in August 2020, she transitioned to North Carolina State University as a postdoctoral fellow with the Social Development Lab under the leadership of Dr. Kelly Lynn Mulvey. Dr. Mathews recently accepted a tenure track faculty position in the Psychology Department at the University of Virginia, where she will start in Fall 2022.

In her free time, Channing enjoys traveling the world and learning from young people. Prior to her arrival to Michigan in 2014, she spent five years abroad teaching middle and high school students in the Dominican Republic and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also enjoys weightlifting, an excellent cocktail, and books with all star women.

Hannah Freeland

Hannah Freeland is a secondary teacher and supports the ACcME lab with her skills in writing and editing. She is a 2020 graduate of the School of Education at the University of Michigan where she earned her degree in secondary education with teacher certification in English and psychology. After discovering a passion for psychology during her junior year of undergrad, Hannah became involved in research through the Women and Gender Summer Research Program at the University of Michigan. She has worked as a research assistant alongside Dr. Sarah Trinh, with Dr. Terri Conley’s Stigmatized Sexualities Lab, and with the Adolescent Transitions Lab at the School of Education. 

Her research interests include peer influences on sexual socialization and the impact of school climate and culture on social-emotional development. In her free time, Hannah enjoys hosting bonfires, dance parties and karaoke nights for her friends and housemates at the co-op where she lives.

Dr. Aixa Marchand, @AixaMarchand

Dr. Aixa Marchand graduated with a Ph.D. from the Combined Program of Education and Psychology (CPEP) at the University of Michigan in 2019 with certificates in African American Studies and Graduate Level Teaching from the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning. Before starting at the University of Michigan, Aixa graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Master of Science in Education with a focus on Education and Social Change. She also taught middle school science for four years in Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

She currently is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Her main research focuses on the attributions that Black parents make about educational inequities and how these attributions may relate to their school engagement. Other related research inquiries include a) illuminating how students and parents of color critically analyze school structures; b) elucidating how familial processes, such as familism and parent racial socialization, impact adolescents’ academic outcomes and socio-emotional wellbeing; and c) the use and development of rigorous methodological tools to address societal inequities.

During her free time, Aixa likes to try new restaurants and bars, spend time with her family, read, and travel.

Gaby Kubi, @skuubiidoo

Gaby Kubi is a doctoral student in the University of Michigan’s Combined Program in Education and Psychology. She graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Human Development, with minors in Education and Inequality Studies. Gaby participated in the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement, community-engaged translational research program partnered focused on cultivating positive youth development within New York State 4-H programs.

She is interested in young Black people’s development of a critical consciousness as they navigate educational institutions, as well as how they form their conceptions of race during this navigation. Gaby also investigates how educational spaces can be reimagined to further support such development and conceptions.

In her free time, Gaby likes to sing, watch cartoons and anime, read, drink wine, and spend time with loved ones.

Stacey Cabrera

Stacey Cabrera is a former lab manager for the AC²ME lab. She also served as the lab manager for the Cambiar Collective at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Stacey graduated from the University of Maryland in December 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology. Throughout undergrad, she worked in two developmental psychology labs and participated in U-M’s 2020 SROP in the ACcMe lab! Her research interests center on how critical consciousness and support networks work together to shape the educational experiences of Black and Latinx adolescents. In the future, Stacey hopes to pursue a PhD in Community or Developmental Psychology.

In her free time, she enjoys running, cuddling with her golden retriever, and thinking about her next beach trip.

D’Anna Pynes, Ph.D.

D’Anna Pynes is a former lab manager in the ACcME lab. Before moving to Ann Arbor she was an elementary teacher and professional development facilitator in Central Texas. She holds a Ph.D. in STEM Education from The University of Texas at Austin. She has worked as a as a graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow on three NSF-funded projects supporting pre-service and in-service elementary mathematics teachers. Her research focuses on mathematics teacher noticing and use of children’s mathematical thinking and opportunities for learning in community.

In her free time, D’Anna enjoys running through the local trails, negotiating mutual interest with her dogs, and relearning how to make her favorite baked goods with gluten-free flours. She also does not seem to mind shoveling the snow from her sidewalk.

Deaweh Benson

Deaweh Benson is a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Michigan. She examines factors and processes that promote well-being among young adults who experience intersecting marginalized identities (e.g. race, class, gender). Her work is grounded in Black feminist theory, critical consciousness, and positive youth development frameworks.

Deaweh earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Spelman College and her Master of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has worked in academic institutions and research organizations where she investigated college student academic success, school-to-work transitions, and developmental supports for young adults.

Yujie Wang

Yujie Wang provided analytical support to NSF Environmental Activism Project at ACcME Lab. Yujie enjoyed her time at ACcME Lab to expand her knowledge in the use of statistical methods in developmental psychology.

Prior to her work at UM, she was an analyst at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) at Teachers College and provided consultation to the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) regarding to the quantitative research on the effectiveness of Early Middle College (EMC) programs in Michigan.

During her free time, Yujie likes to meditate, read, and travel.