Dr. Melina Uncapher is the Chief of Research and Development for AERDF and the Founder and Scientific Director of the first AERDF program, EF+Math. She is an educational neuroscientist with over two decades of experience in academia (with labs at Stanford, UC San Francisco, UC Irvine), the nonprofit sector, and technology development.
Uncapher’s career focus is on championing inclusive research and development in education, and advocating asset-based approaches to student learning. She brings together educators, researchers, and developers to co-create transformative solutions to problems of practice using rigorous science-of-learning insights and the wisdom of educators.
She led a multi-university network funded by the National Science Foundation to study how executive function skills develop in real-world classrooms and co-founded a science-for-good nonprofit that equips educators and students with practical tools based on learning science.
She was also funded by the National Institutes for Health to study how technology use is associated with developmental changes in student cognition. She earned her PhD in Neurobiology from the University of California, Irvine and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University.