Director
Philip I. Pavlik Jr., Full Professor and Dunavant Professor
Director of the Optimal Learning Lab
Philip Pavlik has been Full Professor and Dunavant Professor at the University of Memphis since September 2025 and Chief Editor of the Journal of Educational Data Mining since 2024. His research connects computational theories of learning, memory, and transfer with interpretable learner models and adaptive educational software, including MoFaCTS, LKT, and the emerging TutorScript/SPARC work.
He earned his PhD in cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005, advised by John Anderson, and completed postdoctoral work with Kenneth Koedinger in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute.
Current Team
Current lab members
Hannah Joy Simms
PhD student.
Rusty Haner
Master's student and contributor to MoFaCTS development.
Collaborators
Project collaborators and contributors
August White
Project contributor to MoFaCTS development.
Luke G. Eglington
Collaborator on LKT modeling and related analytics work; Principal AI Scientist at Amplify.
Shelbi Kuhlmann, Assistant Professor
Collaborator on adaptive video work using a skinned MoFaCTS deployment.
Alumni
Completed students
PhD alumni
Meng Cao, Wei Chu, Jaclyn Maass, Kenneth Barideaux, Chanda Murphy, Henry Hua
Master's alumni
Blake Telfer, Kaitlyn Peperone, Clayton Estey, Shardae Dawkins, Adam Boyd
