2025 IDEA Conference GIANT Poster Abstracts

GIANT Project Showcase

1.Developing Tools to Make Mathematics and Other STEM contents More Accessible in College Engineering Course

Hongye Liu, Xiuhao Ding, Louis Asanaka, Lawrence Angrave, Pablo Robles Granda, Chrysafis Vogiatzis, Victoria Yang, Jenny Amos, Meghana Gopannagari, Delu Zhao,Alan Tao, Sonika Tamilarasan, Nancy Zhang, Grace Sletten

Mathematical content in STEM courses are challenging regarding their accessibility particularly for students with disabilities. Based on previous success in digital content generation from lecture videos, this team develops more advanced tools to extract math equations and other STEM content such as tables and diagrams into multiple more accessible digital formats to help all students succeed in such courses. To develop these tools, a large number of engineering and STEM students were surveyed for their opinions and needs for math equations and instruction and new insights were gained about the needs of students for math accessibility.

2. Enabling AI Learning Support for Schools:  Addressing Barriers and Promoting Equity of Access

Maryam Ghadiri, Jiheng Jing, Hadi Meidani, Sotiria Koloutsou-Vakakis, Qingquan Zhang, Elahe Soltanaghai, Blake Everette Johnson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly influencing the educational landscape, offering new opportunities for personalized learning and administrative efficiency. This study investigates AI integration in secondary education by examining teachers' familiarity with AI, willingness to adopt AI-driven tools, and perceived challenges. A survey was conducted among nine teachers from two high schools, covering subjects such as mathematics, history, and art. Preliminary findings indicate that while teachers acknowledge AI's potential benefits, barriers such as lack of training, privacy concerns, and institutional resistance hinder adoption. Future work includes pilot studies and co-design efforts with educators to develop an AI-based teaching assistant system (ATAS). This study also explores how lessons from secondary education may inform AI adoption in post-secondary settings, particularly in engineering and physics departments, where AI applications are becoming increasingly relevant.

3. Engaging Students in Cancer Awareness through Mentorship and Community STEM Partnerships

Stephanie Dietrich, Andrew Loarte, Marcia Pool

This project develops partnerships with organizations serving the K–12 community to provide hands-on, cancer-focused STEM activities that foster persistence in science and build understanding of how STEM fields contribute to cancer research. By leveraging informal learning environments, the program creates authentic engagement and mentorship opportunities that spark and sustain student interest in STEM. Through a network of community partnerships, the initiative supports a long-term, diverse pipeline into cancer research fields by connecting K–12 students with undergraduate and graduate mentors. These mentors, who are studying cancer-related STEM disciplines, design and deliver interactive outreach sessions that link real-world cancer research challenges to accessible, engaging learning experiences.

4. Exploring Women Engineering Students’ Gendered Internship Experiences

Jing Zhang, Hou Xie, Rosie Shen, Valeri Werpetinski, Lawrence Angrave, Leigh Deusinger, Yuting Chen

Women remain underrepresented in U.S. engineering, earning just 23% of engineering degrees in 2020 and comprising only 13% of the workforce in 2019. Internships play a critical role in retaining women in the field and supporting their long-term career growth. This study explores the gendered experiences of women engineering students during internships, focusing on key influencing factors and support mechanisms. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 undergraduate engineering students with internship experience. Using inductive thematic analysis, interview data will be transcribed and collaboratively coded to identify emerging themes. Findings will guide the development of professional development programs aimed at improving internship experiences and advancing gender representation in engineering.

5. Fostering a Sense of Belonging in the Children of Persian-speaking Immigrants Through Multimodal and Gesture-Based Language Learning Pedagogy

Shafagh Hadinezhad, Sourabh Garg, Sharifa Sultana, Sepideh Shah

While many Iranian families in the USA wish for their children to learn Persian and connect with their cultural roots, most of today’s Persian learning resources struggle to address first-generation children’s challenges with right-to-left structure, pronunciation distinctions, homophones, syllable awareness, and visual letter identification. For example, distinguishing letters that look visually similar (e.g., alphabets ر، ز، and ژ) is confusing, as are words with similar pronunciation (e.g., مار، کار). The absence of innovative and successful pedagogies compounds these challenges, often overwhelming learners and diminishing their interest and motivation, hindering their learning journey. To address these challenges, designing and developing interactive game-based digital learning environments can help children in Iranian families in the diaspora learn to read Persian. Existing literature on language learning found gesture-based actions and game-based learning methods beneficial for children (Chevalier et al., 2018; Alper et al., 2017). Studies indicate the promising potential of digital game-based learning for children (Hussein et al., 2019; Vasalou et al., 2017). This research builds on other similar existing literature, including Iranian immigrant children and their parents in design iterations, and investigates ways to design more effective Persian learning tools for Iranian immigrant children. The team aims to provide Persian-speaking children (aged 5-9) with a comprehensive language learning experience through a carefully designed mobile application. The project consists of three phases: (a) understanding the problem with the community and existing literature, (b) design and development of multiple prototypes, and (c) user evaluation. Therefore, project activities involve (i) community engagement, (ii) multiple iterations of the prototypes of the tool, and (iii) user study with the children and parents. In this ongoing project, the team is currently recruiting participants to test the mobile application for its engagement and effectiveness. Insights will be shared from the design process and the study design for data collection.

6. Identifying Barriers and Supports in STEM Undergraduate Laboratory and Design Courses

Rebecca Reck, Katie Ansell, Chris Schmitz, Caroline Cvetkovic, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, David Mussulman, Jessica TerBush, Natalie Taylor

As part of a community of practice, this team has regularly discussed anecdotal evidence that courses were not inclusive of all students, particularly for those with a disability. To better understand this problem, the team designed and implemented a climate survey in Spring 2024 and carried out focus groups in Fall 2024. Although very few students participated, survey data were analyzed to understand those who were motivated to share their experiences. Survey respondents were organized into three groups: students with disabilities, female students without disabilities, and male students without disabilities. Respondents with disabilities reported the lowest sense of belonging in laboratory and design contexts, female students without disabilities reported the highest sense of belonging, and male students without disabilities reported mixed levels of belonging. The team also found that the themes of comments from each group are different. These responses, combined with student feedback via focus groups, provide insight into issues students face in their laboratory and design courses. As this project moves forward, preliminary work informs how future studies may be designed more effectively and begins to provide insight into how to make laboratory and design courses more inclusive.

7. Increasing Algebra 1 Grades through a Joy of MathBot

Joe Bradley, Ruby Mendenhall, Meggan Lee, Jaimya Freeman, Keith Jacobs, Matthew DeVenecia, Jalen Bennett, Ziying Yang

This project provides a resource to help improve mathematics scores for students in Champaign Unit 4 and Urbana School District 116 through a multi-disciplinary approach that engages community stakeholders, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and local school districts. This project focuses on the development of a Math Robot Companion for students taking Algebra 1.

8. Introducing the Asphalt Road-eo Competition at UIUC

Ramez Hajj, Abhilash Vyas, Grant Lindsay

The Asphalt Road-eo is a student competition designed to broaden participation and increase interest among students in attending graduate school and especially studying asphalt materials, one of the most important fields in civil engineering. The first UIUC competition will be held on Saturday, May 3 at the Illinois Center for Transportation, involving UIUC student teams, while a follow-up is planned for this Fall, involving at least four engineering universities from Illinois and Missouri. In this poster, the preliminary work needed to set up the competition will be presented.

9. Moderate Campus Involvement Could Increase Middle School Students' Interest in STEM Careers

R. Caleb Bruhn, Amos Jeng, Willie G Comer, Jr

This project evaluated the effectiveness of a STEM outreach program by giving before-and-after surveys. Between these surveys, over the course of 3-4 months, students in grades 6-8 participated in 2-3 STEM engagement efforts facilitated by UIUC campus partners. The surveys showed that, although overall STEM interest did not significantly change, students experienced marginal gains in 2 out of 4 interest categories.

10. NSBE x BUILT Talent Pipeline Reinforcement

Elisa Carrillo, Melissa Betty Aninagyei-Bonsu, Federico Cifuentes-Urtubey, Grant Lindsay

This research project explores how developing personal coding portfolio projects affects students from historically underrepresented groups in computing, focusing on their self-reported job prospects, sense of belonging, academic experience, and career interests in technology-related fields. Coding projects serve as tangible representations of practical skills, problem-solving abilities, and innovation potential, which are highly valued by tech employers. This project is implemented with a group of 15 students consisting of 10 freshman/sophomore mentees and 5 junior/senior mentors, where each mentor oversees 2 mentees in one project. We require that mentees have no prior internship experience so we can observe potential for professional and technical development, while mentors must have at least one prior industry technical internship experience. This program is conducted in an 8-week paid session, where each group learns technical skills and implements a relevant, impactful project. To observe the progress of mentees’ growth, we evaluate mentees and mentors during biweekly check-ins to assess feelings of efficacy and belonging as well as monitor project development. Our goal is to implement domain-focused academic and professional development support for students in early stages of their computing degrees. Not only do we hope to improve mentees’ technical ability as well as a mentor’s ability to manage projects, but we also hope to improve their feelings of computing efficacy and belonging within Siebel School of Computing and Data Science.

11. Siebel School of Computing and Data Science Directed Reading Program

Isaac Love, Nancy Amato

The Directed Reading Program (DRP) is for undergraduate students interested in studying computer science at a deeper level and exploring the type of learning a graduate student or computer science researcher does. The program allows undergrads to be connected with graduate students and aims to foster mentored relationships and an excitement for self-directed learning.

12. The Evolution and Impact of IMAGINE Family STEM Nights

Ashita Bawankule, Lara Hebert, Tracy Dace, Rafael Tinoco, Rita Conerly, Kellye Smith, Stephanie Cockrell

Family involvement in STEM has been shown to support and improve student learning and engagement. Over the last four years, Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering program (WYSE) has been partnering with community organizations like DREAAM, Urbana Neighborhood Connections Center, and The Well Experience to bring hands-on STEM activities and experiences to local families. With over 20 Family STEM Nights organized in partnership with various University of Illinois organizations (RSOs, graduate student departments, labs, etc.), over 50 families have attended and been impacted by these events. Research also shows the benefits of engaging students in STEM leadership. For some of the family events, middle and high school students acted as mentors to the adult and younger members of their families. Within this poster, some of the preliminary findings from these events are highlighted, looking at the post-session feedback forms and interviews conducted with the participants. Furthermore, this poster is used to facilitate conversation about how to better implement critical discourse about access and representation in STEM, which is a key part of the project’s Family STEM Nights.

13. weSTEM Program Evaluation: Analyzing Belonging

Emily Lawson-Bulten and Isha Deshpande, Archana Verma, Shivani Kamtikar

A sense of belonging has been identified as a key feature leading to the retention and satisfaction of gender minorities in STEM careers. The Graduate Society of Women in Engineers has attempted to create space for the unique challenges women and other gender minorities face in STEM through the weSTEM conference program. For over a decade, this program has connected and inspired current and aspiring STEM leaders. This GIANT grant seeks to identify and share the best practices from attendee experiences at weSTEM through a mixed-methods approach.