Alumna Bobbie Koen Transitions from Ph.D. Student to UH Staff Member - University of Houston
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Alumna Bobbie Koen Transitions from Ph.D. Student to UH Staff Member

Bobbie KoenAfter receiving her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Individual Differences, alumna Bobbie Koen made the transition from a University of Houston, College of Education (UH COE) student to UH staff.

Koen knew she wanted to work in Educational Psychology from a young age. Her grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairies and her father taught high school English, debate, and theatre arts. She went on to teach elementary-level special education classes for 31 years, in public and private schools. “Earning my Ph.D. here has been the icing on the cake,” said Koen.

While studying in UH COE, Koen used fMRI technology to explore the effects of a reading fluency intervention she found on students with reading disabilities. The intervention is a computer program that gradually presents words at faster rates, either on the right or left side of the screen. The fast, forced processing over time changes the way the students’ brains process the words allowing them to read more fluently. “I wasn’t sure that the intervention would work,” says Koen, “since English is a very dense, complicated language. (The original study was in Italian, which is much more orthographically predictable.) But it did [work], so I am currently awaiting publication in the Journal of Learning Disabilities (JLD) and working on a Small Business Innovative Research grant to develop, do more research, and market my intervention.”

Koen cites her professors at UH COE with creating a wonderful support system that allowed her to create and discover. “Dr. Jacqueline Hawkins was my chair and defended my research vigorously,” says Koen. “I could not have done it without her. Dr. Chris Wolters was a wonderful writing mentor and inspires me still to enjoy word-crafting. I am still working with Dr. Weihua Fan to respond to requests for additional statistics for my JLD submission. She is the best, so patient.”

Koen now works as the Assessment Specialist for Institutional Effectiveness at UH where she collaborates with six colleges within the University to prepare program-wide student learning objectives.  She sets up appropriate assessments and helps collect data to support the achievement of the learning objectives, tasks that are required to maintain the university’s accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools: Commission on Colleges. “As an educator,” said Koen, “I have always made data driven decisions to provide the best instruction I could. This is very much the same - setting clear, measureable goals that inform the program’s success. Then, I help to articulate and use the results to make needed content or pedagogical changes.”

Thank you, Bobbie, for all of your hard work. You make us cougar proud!