Merging her academic and cultural identities at UCI
Working with community-informed learning installations as well as game design that supports student learning as an undergrad, Isabella Seccia '23 joined the Ph.D. in Education program this fall.
By Phillip Jordan
November 15, 2023
November 15, 2023
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Growing up in Mission Viejo, Calif., Isabella Seccia ’23 followed an unorthodox educational trajectory. The Latina student started in a bilingual elementary school, transitioned to an English-speaking, public middle school, then graduated from an accelerated online high school program.
As she got older, though, Seccia realized she wasn’t bringing her full self to the classroom — that her academic and cultural identities remained separate entities. “That changed within my first week at UCI as an undergrad,” Seccia said. She credits that light bulb going off to Andres Bustamante, an assistant professor in UCI’s School of Education and director of the School’s STEM Learning Lab. Seccia joined the lab as a research assistant and witnessed how the lab was co-designing new, community-informed learning installations in Santa Ana. “I loved that he was leveraging Latine culture and values in these playful learning programs, and directly engaging these communities in the design,” Seccia said. “It made me want to learn more about my own cultural identity, and get to know my own community, and myself, better. That’s what got me into culturally informed design, almost by accident.” |
Isabella Seccia
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Her interest evolved into direct participation in UCI’s partnership programs with Santa Ana community organizations. She’s collected data to inform community learning projects, delivered conference presentations and even co-authored a publication on the role of parents as co-designers and co-researchers in a Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) project in Santa Ana.
“Isabella is a bright and promising young scholar,” Bustamante said. “In our community research, she was immediately able to connect with children and families, and create an environment where they felt comfortable sharing their knowledge and experiences around early learning. She has a passion for creating learning tools that build from the cultural strengths and assets of Latine families. And she is poised to do powerful work in this area.”
Seccia said her involvement in the PLL project was particularly eye-opening, as she worked with community-based organizations to help transform a bus stop, a grocery store, a playground and more into informal and intergenerational learning experiences.
“That was such an ‘aha moment’ for me to realize that learning could look so different,” she said. “I was used to seeing learning take place in a very structured way in a building built for learning. But I saw that it could happen literally anywhere. It’s about meeting families where they are.”
Seccia went on to work with June Ahn, professor of learning sciences and founding director of OCEAN (Orange County Educational Advancement Network), which supports research-practice partnerships through UCI’s School of Education.
Under Ahn’s guidance, Seccia had the chance to work with informatics majors in designing games to support childhood learning. She specifically helped to incorporate Latine family values into the characters and situations being developed for the games.
“When I started out at UCI, I had almost no research experience, and I certainly had no idea I’d be designing games,” Seccia reflects with a laugh. “It really started out as self-discovery and snowballed into something bigger. And I'm really happy about that.”
Now, her ultimate goal is to become a professor at an R1 institution like UCI. Seccia credits the UCI community for fostering her passions and supporting her goals as they’ve evolved.
“UCI allowed me to learn about my cultural identity, while also giving me a new community to be part of here,” she said. “It’s just a transparent, supportive community. When I was in undergrad, professors and Ph.D. students were so supportive in my labs and research projects. They were always there to answer my questions even when they were super busy and working all the time themselves.”
After earning her B.A. in Education Sciences this year, summa cum laude, Seccia is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Education at UCI. And she’s paying forward the kindness she received as an undergrad.
Seccia is producing, and narrating, a long-term vlog series for the School of Education. The idea is to trace her journey, in real-time, through the Ph.D. program — shining a light on the experience for those interested in following in her footsteps.
She’s especially excited to do this for students who might not have followed traditional pathways to an advanced degree. Seccia graduated high school at 16, completed her bachelor’s degree in two years, and began her Ph.D. program this fall at 19.
“I’ve always moved to the beat of my own drum,” she said. “I love being kept busy. I want to give myself all the opportunities I can. Some people might do that and want to take longer. For me, it’s been the opposite. But my schedule doesn’t feel fast. It just feels like my own pace. I want more students to feel comfortable following their own trajectories, whatever they may be.”
“Isabella is a bright and promising young scholar,” Bustamante said. “In our community research, she was immediately able to connect with children and families, and create an environment where they felt comfortable sharing their knowledge and experiences around early learning. She has a passion for creating learning tools that build from the cultural strengths and assets of Latine families. And she is poised to do powerful work in this area.”
Seccia said her involvement in the PLL project was particularly eye-opening, as she worked with community-based organizations to help transform a bus stop, a grocery store, a playground and more into informal and intergenerational learning experiences.
“That was such an ‘aha moment’ for me to realize that learning could look so different,” she said. “I was used to seeing learning take place in a very structured way in a building built for learning. But I saw that it could happen literally anywhere. It’s about meeting families where they are.”
Seccia went on to work with June Ahn, professor of learning sciences and founding director of OCEAN (Orange County Educational Advancement Network), which supports research-practice partnerships through UCI’s School of Education.
Under Ahn’s guidance, Seccia had the chance to work with informatics majors in designing games to support childhood learning. She specifically helped to incorporate Latine family values into the characters and situations being developed for the games.
“When I started out at UCI, I had almost no research experience, and I certainly had no idea I’d be designing games,” Seccia reflects with a laugh. “It really started out as self-discovery and snowballed into something bigger. And I'm really happy about that.”
Now, her ultimate goal is to become a professor at an R1 institution like UCI. Seccia credits the UCI community for fostering her passions and supporting her goals as they’ve evolved.
“UCI allowed me to learn about my cultural identity, while also giving me a new community to be part of here,” she said. “It’s just a transparent, supportive community. When I was in undergrad, professors and Ph.D. students were so supportive in my labs and research projects. They were always there to answer my questions even when they were super busy and working all the time themselves.”
After earning her B.A. in Education Sciences this year, summa cum laude, Seccia is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Education at UCI. And she’s paying forward the kindness she received as an undergrad.
Seccia is producing, and narrating, a long-term vlog series for the School of Education. The idea is to trace her journey, in real-time, through the Ph.D. program — shining a light on the experience for those interested in following in her footsteps.
She’s especially excited to do this for students who might not have followed traditional pathways to an advanced degree. Seccia graduated high school at 16, completed her bachelor’s degree in two years, and began her Ph.D. program this fall at 19.
“I’ve always moved to the beat of my own drum,” she said. “I love being kept busy. I want to give myself all the opportunities I can. Some people might do that and want to take longer. For me, it’s been the opposite. But my schedule doesn’t feel fast. It just feels like my own pace. I want more students to feel comfortable following their own trajectories, whatever they may be.”
