Dr. Jamie Loizzo is an Assistant Professor of Agricultural Communication at the University of Florida.  Her Ph.D. and M.S.Ed are in Learning Design and Technology from Purdue University.  Jamie also has a B.A. in Radio-Television (News) from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.  She has professional experience as a journalist and video producer and worked in television newsrooms in Illinois, Kentucky, and Florida. Jamie’s dissertation examined a Human Trafficking MOOC.  She has since examined social science and humanities MOOCs and developed the MOOCocracy concept.  Jamie also founded Streaming Science, a project-based learning program for 21st Century science communication education.

I am a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication and am in the first year of getting my master’s degree in Political Science. Since I started graduate school, my research has focused on the factors that contribute to whether or not someone is food insecure and how we can make the general public and policy makers aware of the problem. On the project, I am one of the content developers and I will serve as one of your guides and facilitators with Dr. Loizzo.

Dr. Lisa Pytlik Zillig is an Associate Research Professor at the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center and at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium. Her research especially focuses on the interconnections between different options for the design of public engagements and outcomes such as trust, learning, cognitive and affective understanding of alternative perspectives and values, consensus-building, conflict resolution, and policy acceptance. In addition to researching how the design of the MOOCocracy platform might impact such outcomes, her role in this project is to keep pushing the team beyond traditional teaching and learning paradigms to embrace and enhance models of public engagement around contemporary public policy decisions.

Dr. Leen-Kiat Soh is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska. One of his research interests is in computer-aided education systems, applying intelligent user interface and artificial intelligence to support and improve student learning and performance. His role on the project is to model student behaviors interacting with the platform and understand their learner profiles.

As an Application Development Specialist with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln I create unique educational opportunities to support the educational mission. As part of the MOOCocracy project team, I am developing the web-based tools to bring student interaction and communication together. I earned a Master’s of Science degree in Leadership Education from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, received my Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in Computer Systems Technology from Kansas State University, and have several technical and project management certifications.

I’m an interactive design specialist with IANR Media at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On this project, I created the visual design for interactive MOOC elements, motion design on some of the class videos and created this wonderful website. I earned a Master of Arts degree in Marketing, Communication and Advertising at the University of Nebraska and a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Political Science form Nebraska Wesleyan University.