Doctoral student receives Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program appointment

Third-year doctoral student Undarmaa Maamuujav received a Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) appointment from the California State University Office of the Chancellor.

Maamuujav, who is specializing in Teaching, Learning and Educational Improvement (TLEI), is committed to contributing to the educational attainment of diverse students, with a special concern for those that are underprivileged.

“I have a humble background — that of an individual from an impoverished and underserved community who dreamed big and who believed in the value of education to free oneself from life’s adversity,” Maamuujav said. “I am an English language learner who went through an arduous journey of learning a new language as an adult and developing an academic literacy in a language that is different from my mother tongue.”

Maamuujav immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 after earning a B.A. in English and a M.A. in Linguistics from the University of the Humanities in Mongolia. She enrolled at CSULA, where she pursued a master’s degree in Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages at the Charter College of Education.

Upon completing her degree in 2005, Maamuujav began teaching in two departments at CSULA, while simultaneously obtaining a Master of Science in Public Administration. She enrolled in the UCI School of Education’s Ph.D. in Education program in 2018.

As a doctoral student at UCI, Maamuujav is working on two major research projects. Under the guidance of her advisor, Professor Emerita Carol Booth Olson, Maamuujav is a graduate researcher on a U.S. Department of Education grant to scale cognitive strategies instruction to writing and professional development in eight states (Arizona, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin). Maamuujav’s portion of the research focuses on analyzing essay writing from linguistically and culturally diverse students.
 
“Undraa’s research on the syntactic and lexical features of adolescent English Learners’ text-based academic writing will make an important contribution to the field,” Olson said.
 
Under Associate Professor Penelope Collins, Maamuujav is serving as a co-researcher on a UCI Education Research Initiative to investigate the utility and effectiveness of infographics to scaffold undergraduate students’ writing skills development in process-based writing courses.
 
Maamuujav is sole author of a publication in CATESOL [California Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages] Journal: “Developing Autonomous Self-Editors: An Alternative Approach to Written Corrective Feedback”, and first author of an article in TESOL  [Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages] Journal: “The utility of infographics in L2 writing classes: A practical strategy to scaffold writing development.” 

She currently has four articles in press at peer-reviewed journals. This academic year, she will be presenting her research at two international conferences: TESOL International Convention and American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference.
 
The CDIP supports doctoral students whose goal is a tenure-track position at a California State University. Recipients receive financial support, mentorship by CSU faculty, and professional development and grant resources.