Ph.D. student and NSF graduate research fellow
University of Florida

Yerika is a 3rd year PhD student in Human-Centered Computing and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in Human-Centered Computing (HCC) and CS Education. Her research focuses on understanding how students interact and learn computing concepts in block-based programming environments from a cognitive perspective. She is using neurophysiological devices, electroencephalography (EEG), to measure students' mental efforts during programming tasks. Since arriving at the University of Florida, she has been awarded 3 graduate fellowships: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, GEM Fellowship, and the HCC NSF S-STEM Fellowship. She has been inducted into 2 honor societies Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society [top 1% of University of Florida Electrical and Computer Engineering Students] and Alpha Epsilon Lambda [inducting only 1% of the top 35% of graduate students]. She obtained her B.S in Computer Science from Kean University in 2014.