Ximena Dominguez

“I’ve learned the most from my youngest collaborators—preschoolers. Young children are naturally curious and interested in understanding the world around them; often posing questions and not afraid of failure (which I try to model).”

Bio
Ximena Domínguez, PhD, is Director of Early STEM Research at Digital Promise. Her research examines child-level factors and classroom-level processes that influence young children’s learning and STEM readiness, with the goal of informing early childhood education practices at home and school. Her work involves partnerships with educators and families from disadvantaged backgrounds and in culturally and linguistically diverse communities. To conduct her work, she draws on her expertise in early childhood education, STEM readiness, design- based research, assessment development, and mixed method research design. Her portfolio of work includes research and development projects, evaluation efforts, and assessment development initiatives – all focused on early STEM and exploring the unique affordances of developmentally appropriate technology for early teaching and learning. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), and foundations such as Heising-Simons. Ximena earned an M.S.Ed. in education from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology from the University of Miami. She can be reached at xdominguez@digitalpromise.org.