Dr. Matthew Lira was born in San Diego, CA, and grew up in Indiana – just outside of Chicago, IL. He developed an intense interest in human origins as a child and these interests led him to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology with minors in anthropology and chemistry. While pursuing his BS at Ball State University, he earned the opportunity to complete an Undergraduate Research Experience under the guidance of Dr. Derron Bishop where he conducted confocal and electron microscopy to image synapse elimination during development and disease in a mouse model. This research experience – in concert with a TA opportunity in physiology – led him to develop an interest in how people learn. After completing a curriculum design internship at the Chicago Academy of Science’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and working as a teaching assistant at a pre-school for children with special needs, Dr. Lira completed his MA and PhD at Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago, respectively. There, he trained underneath Dr. Mike Stieff where he completed chemistry education research projects on spatial reasoning and embodied learning. His dissertation focused on knowledge analysis and the design and use of computational tools like NetLogo to support physiology students’ learning to coordinate their knowledge of mathematical and physical models of biological cells. Upon graduating, Dr. Lira completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Biological Sciences with fellowship support from Dr. Stephanie Gardner at Purdue University. He then taught a Psychology of Science and Technology course abroad at Koc University in Istanbul, TR. Since, 2018 he has worked at the University of Iowa where he teaches courses in the Learning Sciences, such as Cognitive Theories of Learning. Among other accomplishments, he is the PI of a major NSF grant (award #2202468) where he collaborates with Drs Ozlem Ece Demir Lira (Iowa) Robb Lindgren (Illinois), and Kesh Thenkurussi (Albany) to design, implement, and evaluate the use of haptic technologies to guide undergraduate students’ understanding of complex computational simulations that model biological cells. Students interested in working with Dr. Lira may contact him via email (matthew-lira@uiowa.edu).