Research

Postgraduate Research

After undergrad, I continued my career in research after very successful experiences throughout undergrad. Due to my diverse set of interests, I decided to dedicate more time to exploring those interests. During this period I was able to work in the field of psychology and gain experience in clinical work.

  • Depatment of Pediatric Nephrology (March 2024 - present) - University of Minnesota

    • As a clinical research coordinator, I contribute to pediatric nephrology research by coordinating all study components, including participant recruitment, enrollment, study visits, data and specimens, and sponsor communication. I collaborate with healthcare professionals and build relationships with patients throughout study participation to ensure all guidelines are met while advancing clinical research.

  • Cognition in Older Adults (August 2022 - January 2024) - University of Minnesota - Center: Cognition, Aging, and Technology (CAT) Lab

    • My role at the CAT lab was the technical and data study coordinator. My main responsiblities were maintaining the consistent functioning of technology used in the study and supervising the proper handling, organization, and sharing of data. The primary research project I supported was on detecting early cognitive decline in older adults using unobtrusive technology to monitor changes in daily living and activities (Aging-Well).

  • Child Development (July 2021 - June 2022) - Yale University - Center: Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy

    • At the Zigler Center, I mainly focused on two projects. First, the Infant-Toddler Climate of Healthy Interactions for Learning Development (I-T CHILD), which guides providers in early education and childcare on promoting positive social and emotional learning and development. Through this lens, we were examining the role of early childhood mental health consultation on childcare settings. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns caused additional stress for childcare providers. I researched the change in mental health symptoms, including stress and depression, over time and the differences for providers of varying racial and ethnic identities.

Undergraduate Research

Throughout my undergraduate career I was very fortunate to work on three different research projects at three different institutions. The diversity of my experiences allowed me to conduct experiments with human subjects and exploratory studies, practice quantitative and qualitative analysis, and engage with a variety of disciplines, such as cognitive science, psychology, education, and computer science.

  • Computer Science Education (Summer 2020 - June 2021) - University of Washington - Advisor: Amy Ko

    • There are many barriers that prevent a variety of students from entering the field of computer science, especially in a competitve environment. In order to better understand how to break down these barriers, I studied the social help-seeking behavior of introductory programming students at a competitive university. I conducted 32 semi-strucutred interviews with students, followed by thematic analysis and qualitative coding on the ensuing transcripts. This process revealed 18 significant factors. We noticed that the decision to seek social help involved a two-fold process: first, the decision to engage in social help-seeking, and subsequently, the decision of who to ask for help. Furthermore, we found that help-seeking in computing is not fundamentally different from other disciplines, although some of the factors were unique to the topic of computing and the specific environment of this study. This study became the basis for my undergraduate honors thesis and computer science capstone, as well as a first-author peer-reviwed paper (see below). For more information about the honors project, visit my computer science capstone page.

  • Software Engineering (Summer 2019) - Carnegie Mellon University - Advisor: Joshua Sunshine

    • I worked on the Penrose project, a platform which turns simple mathematical notation into diagrams. I began implementing Penrose Tutor, which expands this system to teach math with visualizations. I also tackled the issue of how students were going to seamlessly begin using Penrose without having an initial understanding of the programming languages that run it. I designed a tutoring system that would guide students through this. Here I began studying the intersection between computer science and education.

  • Virtual Reality (Summer 2018) - Macalester College - Advisor: Bret Jackson

    • Within virtual reality, I focused on 3D partial-object selection interfaces. I implemented two selection interfaces in C# with Unity using an HTC Vive head mounted VR display, wireless Vive controllers, and a laser-based tracking system. The project concluded with a pilot study that evaluated these two interfaces against a third. Particpants were asked to engage with each interface by selecting a small shape, such as a square, from a larger surface. We tested for speed, efficiency, and ease of use by measuring accuracy, timing each round, and asking questions through a post-study survey.

Select Publications

  • Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Oleson, A., & Ko, A. (2024). Factors Influencing the Social Help-Seeking Behavior of Introductory Programming Students in a Competitive University Environment. ACM Transactions on Computing Education 24, 1, Article 11. PDF
  • De Vito, A.N., Ju, C.H., Lee, S.Y., Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Trofimova, A.D., Liu, Y., Eichten, A., Hughes, A. (2024) Cognitive dispersion is related to subtle objective daily functioning changes in older adults with and without cognitive impairment. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment, and Disease Monitoring. PDF
  • Patel, K., Shafiq, M., Malik, A., Cobanoglu, A., Klotz, M., Humphries, J., Lee, A., Murray, T., Wilkinson, D., Yildirim, I., Elharake, J., Diaz, R., Rojas, R., Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Omer, S., Gilliam, W. (2022). Relationship Between the Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions and COVID-19 Vaccination Among U.S. Child Care Providers: A Prospective Cohort Study. Vaccine. PDF
  • Elharake, J., Shafiq, M., Cobanoglu, A., Malik, A., Klotz, M., Humphries, J., Murray, T., Patel, K., Wilkinson, D., Yildirim, I., Diaz, R., Rojas, R., Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Lee, A., Reyes, C., Omer, S., Gilliam, W. (2022). Prevalence of Chronic Diseases, Depression, and Stress among U.S. Child Care Professionals during the COVID-19 Pandemic. MedRxiv. PDF
  • Jackson, B., Beckham, K., Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Heggeseth, B. (2019). Comparing Convex Region-of-Interest Selection Techniques for Surface Geometry. ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology. PDF
  • Kuperwajs Cohen, A., Ni, W., & Sunshine, J. (2019). Designing Declarative Language Tutorials: a Guided and Individualized Approach. OASIcs, Vol. 76, PLATEAU. PDF