Nurturing Minds, Empowering Communities
Doctoral Student Vanessa Bermudez Bridges Education Gaps Through Culturally-Embedded Research
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A third-year doctoral student in the UCI School of Education’s Ph.D. in Education program, Vanessa Bermudez has a heart for research that makes a real-world difference. She’s particularly interested in working collaboratively with Latine, immigrant and low-income communities to design culturally based educational programs that support early STEM learning.
You can see prolific proof of Bermudez’ passion in her research projects. She has published 10 peer-reviewed journal articles (with an additional two under review) and presented nine conference presentations (and an additional six poster presentations). Bermudez has also led roughly 20 collaborative co-design sessions, in English and Spanish, with Latina mothers in a major partnership project to design playful, research-informed learning installations in public spaces across Santa Ana, Calif. Think children’s museum installations in bus stops, grocery stores, and parks so families can play and learn in their everyday routines. It's no wonder that Bermudez’s faculty mentor, Andres Bustamante, Ph.D., an assistant professor of education, calls his mentee “a future star in the field.” |
Vanessa Bermudez
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“Vanessa is so dedicated to conducting research that truly tackles inequities in education,” Bustamante notes. “And her passion and commitment to service, mentoring, and teaching ensure that she will be a professor who supports, motivates, and elevates her students, too, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.”
Bermudez’s dedication to listening to — and learning from — local families and communities has been refined at UCI, but it was initially inspired by her own life experiences. At age 6, due to the mixed immigrations status of her family members, Bermudez moved from California to her parents’ native Mexico. She lived in the town of Zirándaro until 15, when she moved back to the U.S., to Lynwood, Calif., to stay with a sibling while she finished school. Despite learning a new culture, language and educational system, and without her parents, Bermudez managed to thrive.
But she knew not all students could do the same. She also saw, all too often, families of color placed in educational programs designed without them in mind.
“That lack of framing was what motivated me,” Bermudez says. “Now, when I’m working on collaborative projects with families, I often relate well with Latine parents who had similar immigrant stories to my own.”
Bermudez’s dedication to listening to — and learning from — local families and communities has been refined at UCI, but it was initially inspired by her own life experiences. At age 6, due to the mixed immigrations status of her family members, Bermudez moved from California to her parents’ native Mexico. She lived in the town of Zirándaro until 15, when she moved back to the U.S., to Lynwood, Calif., to stay with a sibling while she finished school. Despite learning a new culture, language and educational system, and without her parents, Bermudez managed to thrive.
But she knew not all students could do the same. She also saw, all too often, families of color placed in educational programs designed without them in mind.
“That lack of framing was what motivated me,” Bermudez says. “Now, when I’m working on collaborative projects with families, I often relate well with Latine parents who had similar immigrant stories to my own.”
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“I want to do research that lifts communities up that have typically been marginalized. And to make sure that I’m always working alongside families, making sure they’re a genuine part of the conversation and included in the process.” – Vanessa Bermudez |
As a researcher, one of her primary goals is to ensure that all of her work is inclusive and respectful of the families and communities it’s intended to help in the end.
“Research can sometimes do more harm than good, and I always try and be mindful of that,” Bermudez says. “That’s what I’ve loved about the work I’ve done through the School of Education, learning about the right approaches to doing research that is humanizing for the families and students who are our partners. |
“I want to do research that lifts communities up that have typically been marginalized. And to make sure that I’m always working alongside families, making sure they’re a genuine part of the conversation and included in the process.”
Her empathy and curiosity shine through in the play-based learning study she’s currently conducting as the lead author of a student-faculty research team at UCI. The team recently completed its pilot study on “Number Ball: Learning Whole Numbers Through Play,” examining whether games with explicit math learning goals can improve early numeracy skills in K-2 students.
Bermudez and her co-authors are currently taking lessons learned from the pilot study, along with teacher feedback, to inform a second iteration. This revised version will hopefully be implemented in partnership with El Sol Science and Arts Academy of Santa Ana and the Santa Ana Unified School District during the 2023-24 school year — with the goal of making young students more receptive to, and prepared for, learning math skills in the classroom. Possible outcomes could include basketball courts divided into fractions and soccer fields embedded with numbering games.
“Math is such a big predictor of lots of things,” Bermudez says. “That’s why all of this is so important to me. The more we can get kids thinking about math in out-of-classroom contexts, hopefully fun ones, that will help with motivation when it comes to learning math in the classroom.”
Bermudez’s dedication to her work is already gaining recognition — both at UCI and beyond. In her first year in the doctoral program, Bermudez was named a Community Research Fellow in the School of Education’s OCEAN (Orange County Educational Advancement Network) initiative.
“That was an instrumental experience for me in learning how to do partnership work and learning participatory design methods,” Bermudez says. “I also learned so much about methodology from my advisor, Dr. Bustamante, as well as Professor June Ahn, who are both PIs in the project I worked on with SAELI (the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative), designing play-based opportunities for STEM learning in community spaces.”
Earlier this year, she was also selected to the Student and Early Career Council of the Society for Research in Child Development, a national organization dedicated to using developmental research to improve the lives of children and families.
Bermudez is currently working on her dissertation proposal, which will expand on her research focused on how learning is accomplished in marginalized communities — including family- and play-based learning outside the classroom.
“I’m working with both teachers and parents on this,” Bermudez says. “By working with them to design learning programs, we can anticipate what issues certain students might have, and any disabilities present. We can also place this work in the context of learning what’s going on in children’s lives at this age — their interests, what their parents are doing, what their lives are like at home.”
Her empathy and curiosity shine through in the play-based learning study she’s currently conducting as the lead author of a student-faculty research team at UCI. The team recently completed its pilot study on “Number Ball: Learning Whole Numbers Through Play,” examining whether games with explicit math learning goals can improve early numeracy skills in K-2 students.
Bermudez and her co-authors are currently taking lessons learned from the pilot study, along with teacher feedback, to inform a second iteration. This revised version will hopefully be implemented in partnership with El Sol Science and Arts Academy of Santa Ana and the Santa Ana Unified School District during the 2023-24 school year — with the goal of making young students more receptive to, and prepared for, learning math skills in the classroom. Possible outcomes could include basketball courts divided into fractions and soccer fields embedded with numbering games.
“Math is such a big predictor of lots of things,” Bermudez says. “That’s why all of this is so important to me. The more we can get kids thinking about math in out-of-classroom contexts, hopefully fun ones, that will help with motivation when it comes to learning math in the classroom.”
Bermudez’s dedication to her work is already gaining recognition — both at UCI and beyond. In her first year in the doctoral program, Bermudez was named a Community Research Fellow in the School of Education’s OCEAN (Orange County Educational Advancement Network) initiative.
“That was an instrumental experience for me in learning how to do partnership work and learning participatory design methods,” Bermudez says. “I also learned so much about methodology from my advisor, Dr. Bustamante, as well as Professor June Ahn, who are both PIs in the project I worked on with SAELI (the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative), designing play-based opportunities for STEM learning in community spaces.”
Earlier this year, she was also selected to the Student and Early Career Council of the Society for Research in Child Development, a national organization dedicated to using developmental research to improve the lives of children and families.
Bermudez is currently working on her dissertation proposal, which will expand on her research focused on how learning is accomplished in marginalized communities — including family- and play-based learning outside the classroom.
“I’m working with both teachers and parents on this,” Bermudez says. “By working with them to design learning programs, we can anticipate what issues certain students might have, and any disabilities present. We can also place this work in the context of learning what’s going on in children’s lives at this age — their interests, what their parents are doing, what their lives are like at home.”
Read the Fall 2023 issue of Advancing in its entirety, here.
