Leadership Team
Yesim Darici
Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and STEMM, Director of Women in STEM initiative, CASE, Professor of Physics.
May 2020-Present
Dr. Darici has performed many important leadership, teaching, and service roles throughout her thirty-six-year career at FIU. Dr. Darici is an educator, scientist, activist and a trailblazer whose achievements have been recognized and awarded globally, nationally, and locally here at FIU. Her awards and recognitions include the “In the Company of Women” Outstanding Women in Science and Technology Award, FIU President’s Access and Equity Award, Florida International University Foundation “Excellence in Teaching” Award, and Florida State University System “Teaching Incentive Program” Award, with many exposures in national and global media and associations.
Dr. Darici’s research focuses on understanding the structure of surfaces at the atomic level and their interactions with the outside world. Over the past three decades, Dr. Darici, a patent holder, has developed and perfected tools that contribute to state-of-the-art research in surface science, nanotechnology, and biochemistry. As Director of Center for Women and Gender Studies, she founded three initiatives, the Gender-based Violence Prevention Initiative, Women in STEM, and FIU’s 100 Women.
In her role as Co-PI of two NSF ADVANCE grants, Dr. Darici is involved in institutional research and collaborations with social science colleagues aimed at identifying trends in hiring, promotion, and retention of women faculty, as well as evidence-based interventions that will improve the status of women in STEM fields.
Dr. Darici received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1985. She also held positions as a scientist at Amoco Research Center in Naperville, IL, and as a post-doctoral research associate at West Virginia University before joining FIU in 1987.
Laird Kramer
Professor, College of Arts, Sciences, & Education
May 2020-Present
Laird Kramer’s work focuses on facilitating institutional change through implementation of, and research on, evidence-based educational practices. He led transformation of the undergraduate physics experience at FIU, creating more well-prepared majors through the implementation modeling instruction-based studio physics courses, establishment of student-centric methodologies, and establishment of a high school/university research and learning community. Kramer has fostered a community that enables future teachers to implement their instructional craft, built by operating more than a decade of intensive, summer professional development in Modeling Instruction for high school teachers.
Rocio Benabentos
Associate Director in the STEM Transformation Institute
May 2020-Present
Rocio Benabentos is the associate director of FIU’s STEM Transformation Institute. Previously, she managed the HHMI Program within the STEM Transformation Institute and provided support to HHMI Faculty Scholars undergoing reform of their STEM courses. She completed her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine and completed her postdoctoral fellowship conducting developmental biology research at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR/NIH). She then served as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the National Science Foundation, with the ADVANCE program in the Directorate of Education. Her research interests include institutional change, faculty professional development, and course reform.
Leanne Wells
Senior Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching
May 2020-Present
Leanne Wells is the Senior Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) at Florida International University and is the project lead for the Evaluation and Rewarding Teaching Initiative. She works closely with stakeholders across the institution to cultivate engaging and safe environments where faculty and students are agents of their own success. This includes strategically planning and supporting FIU’s ambitious goal of a 30:30:40 face-to-face to hybrid to online credit hour ratio that keeps student learning and academic progress at its center. Leanne also partners with FIU’s STEM Transformation Institute to support departments and faculty in course level (re)design particularly in high-enrollment, high-impact entry-level classes and is the principal investigator of a project exploring the impact of adaptive learning tools in Calculus for Engineering.
Prior to moving to CAT in 2017, Leanne was the Founding Director and primary architect of FIU’s Mastery Math Program which received both Bright Spots in Hispanic Education and Commitment to Action awards from the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. The Mastery Math Program included the opening of FIU’s dedicated Mastery Math Labs and the development of departmental courses for entry-level mathematics resulting in 20 – 40% increases in overall course passing rates. Leanne also worked to introduce and develop FIU’s Learning Assistant program, now the largest in the country, to provide our students with learning support from near peers and to increase the number of STEM degree seekers who also become certified to teach in the public schools.
Leanne is a National Park Service mobile patrol volunteer in the Everglades National Park at Shark Valley where she enjoys watching the ebb and flow of the River of Grass and the lives of its inhabitants. She is committed to restoring this unique ecosystem and sharing with locals and visitors alike its intricate and amazing story.
Leanne graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Mathematics from Salisbury University and a Master of Science degree in Mathematics from Clemson University. Post-graduation, Leanne was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana where she taught mathematics, electronics, and physics. After returning to the U.S., Leanne moved to South Florida to serve as lead teacher for Miami-Dade County Public Schools/FIU’s Partnership in Academic Communities (PAC). A math and science program for middle and high school students typically underserved in the STEM disciplines, PAC, and her Peace Corps experience led to her ongoing and strongly held belief that ensuring access to and equity in education, particularly mathematics education, is a social and civic responsibility. She has co-authored numerous scholarly publications and presented her work in national forums.
Monica Cardella
Director of SUCCEED; Professor of Engineering and Computing Education, SUCCEED and STEM Transformation Institute
May 2020-Present
Dr. Monica E. Cardella’s research and teaching focus on creating and understanding spaces that support and empower learners as they engage in engineering design, mathematical thinking, and computational thinking, across school and out-of-school settings. She is especially interested in spaces that recognize and value learners’ ideas, strengths and voices. Her work includes studies of practicing professionals, undergraduate students and educators, middle school students, elementary school teachers and students, and children and families. She does this work in partnership with other researchers, professional societies, informal educators, K-12 schools and community organizations.
Dr. Cardella received the NSF CAREER award in 2011 and the American Society for Engineering Education President’s Award for the Engineering Gift Guide in 2019. She has a BSc in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound, and an MS and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Washington. She was a National Academy of Engineering Postdoctoral Engineering Education Researcher at Stanford University. She also is a mom to two teenagers, a dog and 2 cats, and a former Girl Scout troop leader.
Janki Bhimani
Assistant Professor, Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences
May 2020-Present
Janki Bhimani’s areas of expertise resides within System Architecture, Performance Modelling and Optimization, Resource Management, Capacity Planning, High-Performance Computing, Parallel and Distributed Computing, Cloud Computing, and Big Data Processing. With her extensive experience in the field of new emerging flash-based storage and nonvolatile memory devices, she has made significant contributions to the data storage management community. She is passionate to drive innovation and lead system design solutions team to improve metrices that matters for the applications and systems under study.
She is the recipient of many awards including the Best Paper Awards and Distinguished Reviewer Awards from flagship conferences, Outstanding Applied Researcher Award from FIU, Outstanding Graduate Research Award from Northeastern University, and Quality Matters Certifications for her courses. Her work is published in highly selective conferences and journals. She is also the main inventor of top graded patents. In her free time, Janki finds her inspiration to paint the beauty of the nature.
Umut Caglar
Faculty Fellow
May 2020-Present
Umut received his Ph.D. in 2014 from Case Western Reserve University. His research interests are convex geometric analysis, information theory, and analysis. His Ph.D. thesis focused on information-theoretic inequalities for log concave functions and their relations with inequalities involving convex bodies from convex geometry. His research papers have been published in the leading journals of Mathematics.
Umut is also an innovative and dedicated teacher. He has contributed to transforming the way lower-level math courses are taught and to improving student retention and success by using active learning techniques, emphasizing critical thinking, and using technology. He was also involved in redesigning many math courses to improve the teaching and learning experience at FIU. He served as Hybrid Faculty Fellow in 2021-2022 and helped train faculty from various disciplines to design evidence-based hybrid classes.
He is the recipient of the Top Scholars Award (FIU-2022) and the Rewarding Excellence in Teaching Incentives (RETI) Award (FIU-2022). He has also received the College of Arts, Sciences and Education-Teaching Awards in 2019 and 2021.
Helen Urpi Wagner Coello
Program Director, Postdoctoral Associate
November 2023-Present
Dr. Helen Urpi Wagner Coello is a Postdoctoral Associate at the STEM Transformation Institute. She earned her PhD at Florida International University, focused on using citizen science as a gateway for mosquito monitoring in Miami-Dade County households. Her extensive research background encompasses genomics, landscape ecology, and pedagogy. Previously, Helen led a highly successful research internship program that used citizen science called the Florida Aedes aegypti Genome Group (FLAGG), providing invaluable experience to nearly 1,000 undergraduate students from 2018 to 2022. She was recognized for her program in the 2022 CDC – Southeastern Centre of Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases newsletter. Committed to student success, Helen is driven to continue advocating for accessible education, community-building, and confidence-building initiatives.
Jaroslava Miksovska
Associate Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry; Biomolecular Sciences Institute
May 2020-Present
Jaroslava Miksovska received her PhD in 1998 for time-resolved spectroscopic studies of electron and proton transfer in the photosynthetic reaction centers of Rhodobacter capsulatus under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Sebban at Centre de Genetique Moleculair, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette. After postdoctoral work in the group of Prof. Randy Larsen at University of Hawaii and then at University of South Florida, she took a position as Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department, Marshall University. Since August 2007 she is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida International University.
Past Contributors
Adam Castillo
Former Program Director
January 2023-August 2023
Adam Castillo was the VOCES Program Director. Prior to joining Project VOCES, Adam was a Visiting Research Assistant Professor in the STEM Transformation Institute where he taught introductory calculus courses and designed, implemented, and conducted research on a National Science Foundation-supported calculus intervention that sought to improve student outcomes in a normative calculus sequence. Adam completed his PhD in Mathematics Education at The University of Texas at Austin in August 2017. His dissertation research focused on two-year college mathematics faculty perceptions and use of small-group learning. Adam’s other research interests include improving student success in postsecondary mathematics and examining the impact of active learning courses on student attitudes.
Stephen Secules
Assistant Professor, Co-Graduate Program Director, SUCCEED
September 2022-August 2023
Stephen Secules uses critical qualitative methods to look at everyday educational settings in engineering and shift them towards equity and inclusion. Stephen founded the Equity, Culture, and Social Justice in Education Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Engineering Education and the 2021 edition of the Cambridge Handbook for Engineering Education Research.