RESEARCH
AWARDS
Alberta Society for Computers in Education Scholarship in Educational Computing—September 2022
[The award is granted to superior graduate students who have outstanding academic record with focusing on the use of advanced computational methods to solve problems in educational testing and assessment.]
University of Alberta Graduate Research Fellowship—December 2021
[The award is granted to superior graduate students to complete their graduate research and who contribute to the University of Alberta's community and research. The award was used to complete a research project titled “Active Learning and Data Augmentation with AES”.]
University of Alberta Graduate Award—December 2019
[The award is granted to graduate students who contribute to the University of Alberta's community and research.]
University of Alberta Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship—May 2019
[The award is granted to recruited superior students at the doctoral level who have the potential to contribute to the University of Alberta's community and research.]
Iranian Ministry of Higher Education Visiting Research Student Award—2017-2018
[The award is granted to outstanding PhD students in order to serve as a visiting scholar at an international university.]
Iranian Ministry of Higher Education Scholarship—2012-2017
[The award is granted to the students who were top ranked in the National University Entrance Exam for tuition-free education.]
INTERNSHIPS
Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry Internship
Supervisor: Dr. Hollis Lai, Department of Dentistry, University of Alberta
Project: "Neural Network Approaches Using in Dental Analytics", July—December, 2021
[The project aims to systematically review the current methodologies in dental analytics to understand and develop an efficient model for diagnosing periodontia diseases.]
Mitacs Business Strategy Internship
Supervisor: Dr. Okan Bulut, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
Project: "Bridging Knowledge Gaps for SMEs to Thrive in the Next Normal Economy", May—August, 2022
[The project was a partnership between the University of Alberta and FutureCite Inc. and we constructed a taxonomy for developing a job searching engine.]
Mitacs Accelerate Student Internship
Supervisors: Dr. Carrie Demmans Epp, Dr. Matthew E. Taylor, Computing Science, University of Alberta
Project: "Augmenting Flight Simulators with ML to Efficiently Train Pilots'', January—July, 2021
[The project was a partnership between the University of Alberta and with Delphi Technologies to create the instructional materials to train pilots using a state-of-the-art flight simulator.]
PAST PROJECTS
Project 1: "Active Learning and Data Augmentation with AES", January 2022—December 2022
Supervisor: Dr. Mark Gierl, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
[The purpose of this research project is to create new methods for supplementing sparse data for automated essay scoring. The manuscript from this research has been accepted for publication.]
Project 2: “Automated Diagnosis of Periodontal Disease Using Machine Learning Models”, January—April, 2022
Supervisor: Dr. Hollis Lai, Department of Dentistry, University of Alberta
[In this research project we developed a transformer-based model that learns from patients’ medical record in order to automatically predict the state and progress of patients’ periodontal disease. The research from this project is in preparation to be submitted to the Journal of Periodontal Research.]
Project 3: "Creating Content Coding System for Automatic Item Generation", January—December, 2021
Supervisor: Dr. Mark Gierl, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
[In this research project we created and evaluated a content coding system to organize and track generated test items. The research from this project was published in a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Education as well as presented at the European Association of Test Publishers annual meeting.]
Project 4: “The Effect of Word Embedding Techniques on the Performance of the Automated Essay Scoring Systems”, January—April, 2021
Supervisor: Dr. Okan Bulut, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
[In this research project we used GloVe and Word2Vec embedding techniques and used grid search tunning to find the best hyperparameters for word embeddings using recurrent neural network AES models. The research from this project was published in the Journal of Applied Testing Technology.]
Project 5: "Template vs Non-template Automatic Item Generation", January—August, 2020
Supervisor: Dr. Mark Gierl, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
[In this research project we compared to different methods for generating test items. The research from this project was published in the handbook called the International Encyclopedia of Education.]
Project 6: “Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future”, September—December, 2019
Supervisor: Dr. Jacqueline Leighton, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta
[In this project we developed and validated surveys for teachers and students in K-12 in Canada based on the recent international research on history learning. The research from this project was presented in the annual project committee meeting held by 11 university partners across Canada in Gatineau, Quebec.]
Project 7: “Conceptualizing Language Assessment Literacy for Teachers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)”, January—August, 2018
Supervisor: Dr. Christopher DeLuca, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University
[In this project we used a mixed method design to understand language assessment policy and practice in the MENA countries to construct a culture-specific language assessment framework. The research from this project was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education conference.]
Project 8: “Development and Validation of a Teachers Assessment Literacy Inventory Using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling”, September—November, 2017
Supervisor: Dr. Don Klinger, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University
[In this project we developed a culture specific assessment literacy inventory for English language teachers at high schools in Iran. The result of this research was presented as part of my Doctoral dissertation.]
Project 9: “Validity Issues in Language Placement Tests in Private Language Learning Institutes in Iran”, September—December, 2016
Supervisor: Dr. Kiomars Razavipur, Department of Linguistics, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz
[In this project we conducted qualitative research methods to examine the validity of the language placement tests in Iran. The research from this project was published as a chapter in Issues in Language Testing Around the World: Insights for Language Test Users.]
Project 10: “Investigating the Validity of University Entrance Exams Using the Item Response Theory”, July—December, 2014
Supervisor: Dr. Hamdollah Ravand, Department of Applied Linguistics, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan
[In this project we used the Rasch model to examine the validity of the high-stake test in Iran. The research from this project was published in the journals Issues in Language Teaching and the International Journal of Language Testing.]