Rate My Professor Ilyse Resnick

Professor Ilyse Resnick is Professor of Learning Sciences (Cognition) and Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Education (CASE) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra. She earned her PhD in 2013 from Temple University as part of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. She then completed an Institute of Education Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Delaware, focusing on cognitive development and its applications in educational settings. Prior to her appointment at the University of Canberra, she served as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Pennsylvania State University Lehigh Valley. In her current role, she accepts PhD students and leads interdisciplinary research initiatives.

Resnick's research program identifies and characterizes the fundamental cognitive processes in complex spatial and numerical reasoning, investigating when these skills emerge, how they develop over time, and the specific STEM tasks they support to enable targeted, empirically driven interventions. Her specializations include early childhood STEM learning, spatial reasoning, fraction knowledge, mathematics achievement, and embedded formative assessments in educational applications. She has secured substantial funding as Chief Investigator on projects such as STEM for All: Empowering Early Childhood STEM Learning and Engagement (2025-2029), Helping educators use their student data: the role of embedded formative assessments in educational apps (2023-2026), and Building capacity in Australia's STEM future through literacy engagement in spatial reasoning (2021-2025), as well as co-investigator roles in Spatial intervention: An enduring model for building mathematics achievement (2023-2026) and Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) F-2 Program (2021-2027). She received an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for her project Building STEM capacity through literacy engagement in spatial reasoning. Key publications include Early informal fraction knowledge matters: a longitudinal investigation between first and second grades (Resnick et al., Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2026), Pathways From Spatial Skills to Mathematics: The Roles of Gender and Fluid Reasoning (Harris et al., 2025), A strength-based approach to exploring pre-school children’s spatial language and patterning skills (Harris, Resnick, & Lowrie, Learning and Instruction, 2025), and In search of the mechanisms that enable transfer from spatial reasoning to mathematics understanding (Lowrie et al., 2020). Resnick established a custom laboratory for STEM education and cognitive science at the University of Canberra, collaborated as co-PI on ARC Discovery Grants, and served as lead associate editor for a special issue of the Mathematics Education Research Journal on spatial reasoning supporting mathematics achievement.