The Psychology Department’s Black Scholar Speaker Series: Dr. Dana Miller-Cotto

The University of Illinois Chicago’s Psychology  Department Presents

The Black Scholar Speaker Series 2021-2022

 

We welcome our October 2021 speaker, Dr. Dana Miller-Cotto

October 18-19, 2021

Dr. Dana Miller-Cotto is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware and will be an incoming Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences in the Fall 2022 semester. Dr. Miller-Cotto earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Lehman College and her PhD in Educational Psychology at Temple University. Following graduate school, Dr. Miller-Cotto completed post-doctoral work at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh. She then joined the non-profit sector, working briefly with the NewSchools Venture Fund’s EF+Math Program.

 

Dr. Miller-Cotto’s research aims to understand the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying success in mathematics. Using experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic techniques, she examines the role of children’s early childhood experiences at home and in schools that may promote or inhibit executive functions, or the ability to regulate and control actions and cognitions, in the context of mathematics and how these experiences may differ based on race/ethnicity and family resources.

 

Main Lecture: Monday, October 18, 2021, 9-10:30am CT

Working Memory and Early Math Skills: A Culturally Sensitive Perspective on Ethnic Minority Children’s Development: In this session, Dr. Miller-Cotto will present her recent work on examining family practices that promote executive functions in the context of math taking a culturally responsive approach to understanding differences between ethnic/racial groups. After presenting the research findings, Dr. Miller-Cotto aims to engage the audience in fleshing out the normative perspectives that are often used to understand family practices, ones that often present these practices as deficient, and instead present African, Latinx, and Asian values as a lens to understand these practices and the contexts that ethnic minority children thrive academically. Register for this event here.

 

Affinity Session: Monday, October 18, 2021, 10:45-11:45am CT

The Affinity Session provides the opportunity for Black students, staff, and faculty to come together in community with each other and the visiting scholar to collectively reflect on their realities of being Black and in the field of psychology. Register for this event here.

 

Special Session: Tuesday, October 19, 2021, 12:30-1:30pm CT

What Can I Do with My PhD? Insights from My Year in the Nonprofit World: Dr. Miller-Cotto will share her perspectives about working in the non-profit sector and take questions about using skills gained in PhD programs that transfer well to jobs outside of the academy. She will speak from her experience as a Equity Research Manager at the NewSchools Venture Fund’s EF+Math Program. Register for the event here.