WI+RE's Creative Team

Abigail

Learner-Designer

Abigail is an undergraduate Psychobiology major. She hopes to go into research studying learning in the brain and is passionate about designing accessible resources that help all students learn in a way that is most meaningful to them.

Hannah

Instructional Designer & Outreach Specialist

Hannah Sutherland (she/her) is the Instructional Designer and Outreach Specialist for Arts, Music, and Powell libraries. She also serves as a co-library liaison to the Global Islam Cluster. She is particularly passionate about critical pedagogy, Universal Design for Learning and accessible and scalable online instructional design.

Mohsin

Instructional Design & Outreach Specialist

Mohsin Ali is the instructional design and outreach specialist for the Humanities and Social Sciences department of the Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Management Library and the Charles E. Young Research Library. He obtained his PhD in Islamic Studies from UCLA in 2022, and has taught courses on Global Islam for the UCLA Clusters Program. He is passionate about designing effective learning experiences for students.

Nick

Learner-Designer

Nick Nyein (he/him) is an undergraduate Public Affairs major and Statistics minor. As a student, Nick is passionate about exploring the intersectional science of evidence-based policy, and he hopes to eventually pursue a doctoral degree involving health policy and economics. Outside of work, Nick loves fashion, collecting postcards, and watching dramatic reality TV shows!

Neha

Neha is an undergraduate Physiological Sciences major who is minoring in Spanish. She is passionate about making learning accessible and enjoyable for her fellow students.

Renee

Science Librarian & WI+RE Co-Founder

Renee Romero is a Sciences Librarian at UCLA Library, and one of the founders of WI+RE. She works on outreach initiatives, and serves as a liaison to the science and engineering community and the Interracial Dynamics Cluster. Renee enjoys devising practical steps to reach theoretical ideals, and critically examining the ways we think, learn, and teach.

Rumaysa

Learner-Designer

Rumaysa is an undergraduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering and is passionate about integrating nanotechnology into underserved communities through research initiatives. She is dedicated to fostering student engagement in learning and research endeavors, with the aim of advancing educational equity and accessibility for all.

Salma

Research and Instruction Librarian (Online Learning & Scalable Teaching)

Salma Abumeeiz is a Research and Instruction Librarian at the Powell Library with a focus area of online learning at scalable teaching. She supports learners across a variety of disciplines, and also serves as a liaison to Cluster 27: Global Islam and the Academic Advancement Program. Salma is passionate about critical pedagogy and supporting student research.

Sayyida

Learner-Designer

Sayyida is a second-year Business Economics major with a minor in Global Studies who embodies a dynamic blend of academic pursuits. Her keen interest in economics research underscores a dedication to understanding the intricacies of global systems and their impact on communities which also manifests her desire toward making educational initiatives and projects accessible for all. Currently, she hopes to pursue law school and become a lawyer to advocate for justice leveraging her passion for finance, business, and law. Outside of academia, Sayyida loves to read timeless classics, watch Netflix, and dance.

Xinjian

Xinjian is an undergraduate majoring in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, who is also working at the UCLA Powell Library as an outreach/social media intern. She is passionate about education research focusing on active learning and creating an inclusive learning atmosphere for students.

April

Learner-Designer

April is an undergraduate pursuing a major in Computational and Systems Biology, along with a minor in Environmental Engineering. She hopes to create effective and understandable material, with consideration of inclusive design.

Caitlin

Learner-Designer

Caitlin worked with WI+RE during her Master of Library & Information Science program, focusing on tutorials about citation management and literature reviews. She presented on WI+RE's process at Code4Lib 2017 and co-authored a book chapter on the WI+RE way. After graduation, Caitlin moved to New England to be a Research & Education Librarian at Yale. She now runs the general education program at the medical library, teaches research skills in the curriculum for MD and PA students, and coordinates the personal librarian program.

Cassandra

Learner-Designer and Social Media Assistant

Chris

Student Success Librarian at Borough of Manhattan Community College

Chris Lopez worked at the UCLA Library as a public services assistant and instructional resource designer. Chris now serves as a Student Success Librarian at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Chris loves exploring multimodal avenues for instruction, such as webcomics, so that all types of learners can participate in the learning process.

Cymfenee

Learner-Designer

Cymfenee is a Computational and Systems Biology major with a concentration in Bioinformatics. She graduated in 2021, and was a learning assistant for Life Sciences 7B - Genetics, Evolution, and Ecology for three quarters before joining the WI+RE team. Cymfenee is passionate about researching and creating equitable learner-centered practices and the accessibility of those practices. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Duke University.

Doug

WI+RE Co-Founder and Digital Experience Manager at UCSD Library

Doug Worsham is a WI+RE co-founder, a former librarian at UCLA, and currently the Digital Experience Manager at UCSD Library. With a background in instructional design and student-centered pedagogy, he is passionately interested in how learners work together to build knowledge.

Giselle

Learner-Designer

Giselle Burns is a Psychobiology undergraduate with a passion for research and discovery. She hopes to find solutions and treatments to the most pressing health issues. Furthermore, Giselle enjoys learning about learning, and hopes to inspire others to do the same.

Jake

Jake is a fourth year Marine Biology major. Building off of his work as an undergraduate learning assistant, he believes that all students should have inclusive, accessible learning resources, and is passionate about helping to prepare students for success during college.

Jeannie

Learner-Designer

jeannie-chen (陳宇晶) earned her MLIS from UCLA and her BA in English from California State University at Northridge (CSUN). Her areas of interest include instructional design & pedagogy, academic librarianship, archival studies, literature, music & performing arts, and Asian American Studies. Through her WI+RE experience, she learned elements of prototyping, scripting, storyboarding, and basic web development skills that have remained useful to her current work today. She has plans to pursue a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in the Learning Design and Technology Program at the University of Southern California, with expected completion in 2022. My WI+RE Projects include: Reading Strategies (Annotation), WI+RE Learning Narratives, Contacting Instructors (contributed to the handout's content and design with Kian Ravaei), a mini-project to supplement simplified Chinese subtitles to existing English subtitles in Mapping Your Research Ideas (video).

Jen

Learner-Designer

Jen is a User Experience and Human-Computer Interaction researcher, currently working at Google Stadia. She worked at WI+RE while completing her Ph.D. in Information Studies, and was the lead instructional designer of the research process interactive poster survey series. She also worked on the Wheel of Sources project, and co-authored a book chapter on student engagement in libraries with her fellow WI+RE members.

Juan

Learner-Designer

Juan is an undergraduate studying Economics and Film. He is interested in creating impactful visually interesting learning materials.

Kaitlin

Kaitlin is a 4th year undergraduate Public Affairs major with minors in Environmental Systems and Society and Asian American studies. She is passionate about community engaged research and also works on UCLA Library social media.

Kian

Learner-Designer

Kian worked with WI+RE for over three years as an undergraduate Music Composition major at UCLA. He strives to help learners achieve their learning goals through empathy, honesty, and purposeful design.

Monique

Monique is a first year grad student at the UCLA animation workshop. A 2020 graduate, she studied English and film in her undergraduate years. She's passionate about combining old and new methods to foster learning environments that are collaborative, experimental and visually-stimulating.

Pamela

Learner-Designer

Pamela is a first-generation student. This is her first year at UCLA as a graduate student. She is currently working on my master’s degree in Library and Information Science and hopes to become an academic librarian. She is passionate about helping and encouraging students to never give up on their educational goals.

Royson

Learner-Designer

Royson joined the Creative Team in October 2019 until his graduation in March 2020. At WI+RE, he used his passion for accessibility to build on universal tools like "Using Google Scholar" to help learners achieve their goals. He looks forward to continuing his education and credits WI+RE for teaching him about the possibilities of design and expanding his horizons.

Sarah

Sarah Phan is an undergraduate majoring in Biochemistry. She is interested in creating innovative learning resources that inspire students and improve their learning experience. She hopes to contribute her work to establishing an inclusive and collaborative classroom environment at UCLA.

Shannon

Learner-Designer

Shannon worked with the WI+RE Team for two years, right as the project was getting started. Through WI+RE she was able to explore and build a variety of new skills like html coding on the WI+RE website, video editing on projects such as “Reading Strategies,” and simple animation like in “Expanding Perspectives.” Most of all Shannon took away a passion for the collaborative design process and for instructional design. Shannon is currently using and building this passion as a special education teacher.

Taylor

Learner-Designer

Taylor joined WI+RE during its first year, and worked with the team for three years. Since graduating in 2019 with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she has been freelancing and working as a Marketing Analyst at a civil engineering firm. Her experience at WI+RE shaped her continued interest in putting the readers and learners first. She also runs a writers’ group for women, nonbinary, and writers of color.

Xinyi(Alex)

Learner-Designer

Xinyi was an undergraduate double majoring in Biology and Applied Math. At WI+RE, She combined design and pedagogy to make resources on research and learning more accessible to UCLA students. Currently, Xinyi is starting a PhD program at UT Austin and will continue to devote to her passion in research and education.