Members

Officers

Almahaireh, IbrahimIbrahim Almahaireh, Co-Chair
Kinesiology, Human Sciences
3rd year, Ph.D.

Ibrahim Almahaireh is a passionate and dedicated doctoral candidate at The Ohio State University, with a focus on Physical Education Teacher Education and Sports Coaching within the Kinesiology program. He holds a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology from Loughborough University, UK, where he researched the effects of carbohydrate sources on half-marathon running performance, physiological parameters, and gastrointestinal distress. Ibrahim earned a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education from the University of Jordan, where he graduated with honors. With extensive professional experience in Sports, Ibrahim is an active researcher, with publications and presentations in the field of sports science and physical education. Including his current role as a volunteer assistant coach with the swimming team at The Ohio State University. Ibrahim is also the founder and president of the Jordanian Student Organization (JSO) at Ohio State, where he is dedicated to representing and advocating for his fellow students. In addition to his academic achievements, Ibrahim has garnered numerous honors and awards, including being recognized twice as the best coach of the year and the youngest coach in the country for elite level by the minister of youth and sports in 2019 and 2020. He has been awarded funding from the Oberteuffer and Barr scholarships at The Ohio State University. Ibrahim is a skilled and motivated educator, researcher, and advocate who is committed to making a meaningful impact in the field of physical education and sports science.


Wonjoon Cha, Co-Chair
Educational Psychology, Educational Studies
2nd year, Ph.D.

After receiving his B.A. in English Language Education at Korea University, Wonjoon has worked as a nationally certified English teacher at a public middle school in Seoul. His research interests include fostering a motivational climate in secondary schools and designing a program for adolescent students to learn effective learning and motivation strategies. He is also interested in how technology can be used to improve students’ self-regulation and motivation. He likes jogging and swimming and enjoys any kind of cultural activities (e.g., watching movies, listening to music, traveling).


Arianna BlackArianna Black
Educational Psychology, Educational Studies
4th year, Ph.D.

Arianna Black is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology program at The Ohio State University. She earned her M.A. in Educational Psychology from OSU in 2020 and her B.A. in Psychology from Colby-Sawyer College in her home state of New Hampshire in 2013. Arianna serves as a graduate teaching associate and works under advisor Dr. Shirley Yu. Arianna’s research interests include learning and academic motivation, particularly in adolescent and college student populations.


Yuseva Iswandari
Multilingual Language Education, Teaching and Learning
5th year, Ph.D.  

 Yuseva Iswandari is a doctoral candidate in the Multilingual Language Education program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Ohio State University. She earned her B.Ed. in English Language Education Study Program at Sanata Dharma University Indonesia where she becomes one of the faculty members in this study program working closely with EFL Indonesian pre-service teachers. She obtained her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction at Arizona State University. Her main research interest is related to EFL pre-service teacher professional development including their identity construction nd their language use and practice, intercultural communicative competence, and reading-writing connections.  Yuseva currently works under Dr. Francis Troyan and focuses her research on the exploration of translanguaging practice and how it is connected to pre-service teachers’ translingual identity in EFL contexts.    


Charlize WangCharlize (Hsiang-Ling) Wang
Multilingual Language Education, Teaching and Learning
3rd year, PhD

Charlize Wang (she/her/hers) is a doctoral student in Multilingual Language Education at The Ohio State University. She earned two Master’s degrees in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and Education in Michigan. Before she joined OSU, she taught Mandarin at National Taiwan Normal University (Taiwan), University College Dublin (Ireland), and The University of Scranton (USA). Her scholarly interests lie in raciolinguistic ideologies, translanguaging, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. She strives to recognize students of color’s needs and affirm their funds of knowledge in the world language classroom. She works as a graduate research associate under Dr. Becky Huang for the Building Knowledge and Language through Inquiry (K.L.I.) project. As for leadership experience, she served as Chair of the Teaching and Learning of Culture SIG of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages from 2022–2023 and as Vice Chair in 2021–2022. To facilitate community engagement, she co-edited and published six newsletters quarterly. At Ohio State, she serves as a Delegate for the Department of Teaching and Learning on the Council of Graduate Students. She is also a Peer Advisor associated with the Office of International Affairs.


April White 
OSUN, Human Sciences
4th year, Ph.D.

April received her master’s in Animal Sciences with a specialization in ruminant nutrition and mathematical programming models in 2020. She is a third-year PhD student in the OSU Nutrition program, specializing in ruminant nutrition and protein response. She is a previous chair of the College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Graduate Student Advisory Committee, and publishes a bi-monthly extension article in Buckeye Dairy News. In addition to her work in agriculture, April is a mental health advocate and volunteers with OSU’s suicide prevention program REACH trainings.


Pizzulo, Alexis - HeadshotAlexis Pizzulo  
Human Development and Family Science (Couple and Family Therapy), Human Sciences
3rd year, Ph.D.  

Alexis is a PhD student in Ohio State’s Human Development and Family Science (HDFS) program specializing in Couple and Family Therapy (CFT) and pursuing Graduate Interdisciplinary Specializations in Quantitative Research Methods and the Cognitive and Brain Sciences. She is advised by Dr. Natasha Slesnick. Her research interests generally include cognition, emotional expression, problem-solving, substance use, and systemic interventions.

Clinically, Alexis is interested in utilizing a systemic perspective to treat individuals, couples, families, and groups through symbolic experiential and cognitive behavioral therapy models. She seeks to provide a therapeutic environment that connects emotional expression, humorous metaphor, thought-provoking insight, and behavioral change.

Alexis’s current leadership roles include serving as the doctoral student representative for Ohio State’s CFT program as well as the HDFS-CFT PhD student representative for Ohio State’s Department of Human Sciences. In her free time, Alexis enjoys cooking, reading, hiking, running, and traveling to baseball stadiums across the country.


Michelle Leao
Higher Education and Student Affairs, Educational Studies
3rd year, Ph.D.

Michelle is a second year Ph.D. student in Higher Education and Student Affairs. Born in India and raised in New Jersey, she completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology with a minor in Public Health at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) and a master’s degree at Indiana University in HESA. Michelle currently works as the Managing Editor for the Journal of Higher Education with Dr. Stephen Quaye. Michelle is also a Delegate for Educational Studies to the Council of Graduate Students. Michelle’s passions and research agenda are focused on student leadership development, HESA graduate preparation programs, and attrition of student affairs professionals, especially for students who hold marginalized identities.

Headshot_Wu XieWu Xie
Higher Education and Student Affairs, Educational Studies
5th year, Ph.D. 

Wu Xie is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education and Student Affairs. She received two M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Nanjing Tech University in China and The University of Nottingham in UK before working as an electrical engineer. Following that, she completed an M.Ed. in College Student Services Administration from Oregon State University. Wu’s research program investigates how organizational processes could reduce inequality in higher education through an interdisciplinary lens across the boundaries of higher education, social work, and public affairs. Wu is a mixed methods research scholar, hoping to leverage the strengths of quantitative and qualitative research approaches in response to increasingly complex sociopolitical and sociocultural issues playing out in higher education.


Ragul Senthil
Consumer Sciences, Human Sciences
2nd year, Master’s

Ragul Senthil is a master’s student in Fashion and Retail Studies in the Consumer Science program. He earned his Bachelor of Design-Textile Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, India, in 2019. Before Joining OSU, he was working in the home textile and comfort product industries as a Textile and Product Designer. He also serves as Treasurer of the Hospitality and Retail Management Graduate Student Association and Fashion and serves as a Retail Studies Grad Program Ambassador!