Advising and Mentoring

Welcome to my Advising and Mentoring page! Below, you will find a list of former students and mentees I’ve worked with and some of the projects we worked on together.

Current Openings

Spring 2026:

• 1 position for an hourly graduate RA with good practical knowledge of latent variable models (i.e., SEM, IRT, LGCM).
• 1 position for an hourly graduate RA with advanced python skills to support students related to my clustering project (see my research page for more).

Undergraduate Students

2026:

• Samhita Periyanayaham: Statistics-Situated Tolerance of Uncertainty and Ambiguity\(^2\)

2025:

• Ella Hiles: Studying the impact of the TikTok ban on Gen Z’s social and mental health\(^1\)
  • Winner of the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium Award for Outstanding Oral Presentation
• Alexandra Stoica: Word perception of personality disorder diagnostic criteria\(^1\)
• Mia Petrie and Madeline Hunt: Students’ thinking about biases and challenges when interpreting news media data visualizations \(^1\)\(^4\)
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/authenticliteracy/
• Madeline Hunt and Samin Hemani: The relationship between students’ tolerance of uncertainty and statistics understanding\(^1\)\(^2\)\(^4\)
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/acceptuncertainty/
• Reem Kharfan: Developing students’ statistical literacy habits of mind\(^1\)\(^4\)
• Samhita Periyanayaham: A culture-specific therapy program for individuals with anxiety disorders\(^1\)
• Aman Ravishankar: Debate activities to promote students’ statistical thinking\(^1\)
• Max Fang: The relationship between students’ self-efficacy and their learning\(^3\)
• Preetha Manjunath: The relationship between students’ personality traits and attitudes towards AI\(^2\)
• Karena Liang: The relationship between students’ personality traits and attitudes towards statistics\(^2\)
• Sophia Stierwalt: The relationship between students’ views of statistics and attitudes towards statistics\(^2\)

2024:

• Priyadharshini Sriramlatha and Aparajita Vemuri: The relationship of personality characteristics with learning statistics\(^1\)
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/acceptuncertainty/
• Bhuvan Kala, Julianna Drew, and Sanjana Gongati: Harnessing AI to develop students’ statistical thinking\(^1\)\(^2\)\(^4\)\(^6\)
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/HarnessingAI/
• Daniel Hogan: Mind wandering when learning statistics\(^2\)

2023:

• Shubh Goyal: Individual differences in human clustering\(^2\)
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/clustering/
• Vishnu Sadhu: Psychological factors associated with purchasing life insurance\(^2\)

2022:

• Maisie Simpson: Association between generational trauma and progressive dementia types\(^6\)

\(^1\) Presented at the UIUC Undergraduate Research Syposium
\(^2\) Presented at the UIUC Department of Statistics Undergraduate Research Experience in Statistics Symposium
\(^3\) Presented at the UIUC Department of Statistics Blackwell Summer Scholars Program Symposium
\(^4\) Presented at the US Conference on Teaching Statistics
\(^5\) Presented at the Electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics
\(^6\) Published a peer-reviewed journal paper
\(^7\) Published a Bachelor’s thesis

Graduate Students

2025:

• Laura Bandi: Latent change score modeling of students’ propensity to pursue statistics and data science
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/HarnessingAI/
• Amos Jeng and Tiffany Reyes Denis: Harnessing AI to develop students’ statistical thinking
  • For more, visit RaoVNV.github.io/HarnessingAI/

2024:

• Maisha Ahasan: The impact of teacher-student identity congruence on students’ sense of belonging