Ha Nguyen, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
I design and research technologies to promote deeper STEM knowledge, competency, and skills for diverse learners.
My current research has dual focus on Design and Analytics. From a Design perspective, I partner with students, teachers, and informal educators to ground the design of technologies (e.g., conversational agents, learning dashboards) in learners' experiences. I further apply learning analytics methods to investigate how people construct knowledge in informal and formal learning environments, in collaboration with others and with AI technologies. This Analytics strand generates insights to inform technology design, to support human-human and human-AI exchanges towards productive learning. My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and several internal grants, including a Faculty AI Research Fellowship at UNC. I have published in leading journals in learning analytics and science education, including Computers & Education, British Journal of Education Technology, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and Journal of Learning Analytics. Before UNC, I was an Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences at Utah State University. I received a PhD in Education from University of California-Irvine, where I was mentored by Drs. June Ahn, Rossella Santagata, and Mark Warschauer.
Projects: I am the Principal Investigator (PI) on a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant investigating the use of multimodal large language models to provide formative feedback on science assessments, in ways that build on and enrich students' science understanding (NSF DRL-#2422286; 2024-2027). My team is extending findings from this work to develop technology infrastructure and professional development for high school teachers to leverage AI to promote science practices (PI, NSF DRL-#2620691; 2026-2029). I am Co-PI on a third grant that explores the co-design of conversational agents to support science communication with high school students, informal and formal educators, and STEM professionals (NSF DRL-#2241596; 2023-2026). My work generates insights around how to design and evaluate AI technologies, with an aim to incorporate community perspectives and promote science learning.
I am recruiting PhD students in the Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies (LSPS) program at UNC Chapel Hill (for Fall 2027 enrollment).Selected Publications
See Google Scholars profile for full publication list. * = graduate students; ** = undergraduate students that I mentored.
Nguyen, H., Valdez, E., Pei, J.**, Ludovise, S., & Santagata, R. (2026). Supporting systems thinking in environmental science education with Large Language Model chatbots. International Journal of Science Education, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2026.2695951
Nguyen, H., & Cao, J.* (2026). Exploring the capacity of Large Language Models to simulate students’ scientific thinking: Insights for responsive teaching. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-026-10333-5
Nguyen, H., Nguyen, V.*, Ludovise, S., & Santagata, R. (2025). From misrepresentation to inclusion: Promises of generative artificial intelligence in climate education. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2024.2435834
Nguyen, H., & Hayward, J.** (2025). Applying generative Artificial Intelligence to critiquing science assessments. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1-16. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10956-024-10177-x
Nguyen, H., & Nguyen, A. (2025). Reflective practices and self-regulated learning in designing with generative Artificial Intelligence: An ordered network analysis. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1-15. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10956-024-10175-z
Campos, F., Nguyen, H., Ahn, J., & Jackson, K. (2024). Leveraging cultural forms in human-centered learning analytics design. British Journal of Educational Technology, 55(3), 769-784. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13384
Nguyen, H.. (2023). Role design considerations of conversational agents to facilitate discussion and systems thinking. Computers & Education, 192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104661
Nguyen, H., & Diederich, M.* (2023). Facilitating knowledge construction in informal learning: A study of TikTok scientific, educational videos. Computers & Education, 205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104896
Nguyen, H., Lopez, J., Homer, B., Ali, A., & Ahn, J. (2023). Reminders, reflections, and relationships: Insights from the design of a chatbot for college advising. Information & Learning Sciences, 124(3/4), 128-146. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-10-2022-0116
Nguyen, H.. (2022). Let’s teach Kibot: Discovering discussion patterns between student groups and two conversational agent designs. British Journal of Educational Technology. http://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13219
Nguyen, H., Lim, K.Y., Wu, L., Fischer, C., & Warschauer, M. (2021). “We’re looking good”: Social exchange and regulation temporality in collaborative design. Learning & Instruction, 74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2021.101443 [pdf]
Nguyen, H. & Santagata, R. (2021). Impact of computer modeling on learning and teaching systems thinking. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(5), 661-688. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21674
Cao, J.*, Nguyen, H., Yavuz, S.*, Yu, B.*, Wang, S.*, Kaur, P., & Cross Francis, D. (2026, June). Developing authentic simulated learners for mathematics teacher learning: Insights from three approaches with Large Language Models. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 205-214). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-29770-9_23
Nguyen, H., Nguyen, V.*, López-Fierro, S.*, Ludovise, S., & Santagata, R. (2024, July). Simulating climate change discussion with Large Language Models: Considerations for science communication at scale. In Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (pp. 28-38). https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3657604.3662033
[Naomi Miyake Outstanding Student Paper Award] Lopez-Fierro, S.*, & Nguyen, H. (2024). Making Human-AI contributions transparent in qualitative coding. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning-CSCL 2024, pp. 3-10. International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://repository.isls.org/handle/1/10537
Nguyen, H., & Allan, V. (2024, March). Using GPT-4 to provide tiered, formative code feedback. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 958-964). https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3626252.3630960
Nguyen, H. (2022). Examining teenagers’ perceptions of conversational agents in learning settings. In IDC’22: Interaction Design & Children (pp. 374-381). https://doi.org/10.1145/3501712.3529740
Nguyen, H., Ahn, J., Belgrave, A., Lee, J., Cawelti, L., Kim, H.E., Prado, Y., Santagata, R., & Villavicencio, A. (2021). Establishing trustworthiness through algorithmic approaches to qualitative research. In Second International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_4 [pdf]
Nguyen, A., Sharma, K., & Nguyen, H. (2026). Artificial Intelligence in Multimodal Learning Process Analytics: Theories, Methods and Applications. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035353811
Nguyen, H., Campos, F., & Ahn, J. (2021). Designing for generative uncertainty in learning dashboards. In Ifenthaler, D., & Muhittin, S. (Eds), Visualizations and dashboards for learning analytics (pp. 457-475). Springer, Cham.
Nguyen, H., Campos, F., & Ahn, J. (2021). Expanding the design space of data and action in education: What co-designing with educators reveal about current possibilities and limitations. In Bowers, A. (Ed), Data visualization, dashboards, and evidence use in schools: Data collaborative workshop perspectives of educators, researchers, and data scientists. Teachers College, Columbia University. New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-jj2g-e225
Teaching
Design of Emerging Technologies for Education. Spring 2025-present. UNC Chapel Hill. Graduate Level
AI for Learning and Innovation. Fall 2024-present. UNC Chapel Hill. Graduate Level.
Introduction to Learning Analytics. Spring 2024. Utah State University (USU). Graduate Level.
Games & Learning. Fall 2022, 2023. USU. Graduate Level.
Design Processes & Perspectives II. Spring 2023, 2024. USU. Undergraduate Level.