Kristia Wantchekon is a second year doctoral student in the Human Development, Learning and Teaching concentration. Prior to beginning her doctoral work at Harvard, Kristia taught 4th and 5th grade English in New Orleans, Louisiana. She also worked as a Project Manager at EdLabs, where the team collaborated with districts to implement the lab’s research findings on best practices in public education. Her interests include adolescent literacy, struggling readers, and reading motivation. As part of the the Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group, Kristia coordinates research projects focused on understanding the impact of classroom conversation on adolescent literacy outcomes and conducts coding and data analyses. Kristia earned her B.A. from Yale University and will receive her Ed.M. in passing Spring 2017 in Human Development and Psychology.