Research

Research Interests

As an undergraduate, I was mostly interested in neuro-oncology and neuropsychology. I had special interest in information processing and executive attention. (Hemispatial neglect and other attentional disorders were of great interest to me.) As a masters student, my interests also expanded to individual behavior around climate change. Now that I am in my tailend of my doctoral training, my research interests revolve around individual and institutional behaviors relating to the STEM workforce. I have strong methodological interests in measurement, data acquisition, and data analysis. Much of my work in graduate school involved developing and analysing behavior assessments as well as data mining and text analysis.

Publications

3. Ha, S., Marchetto, D.J., Dharur, S., & Asensio, O.I. (2021). Topic Classifcation of Electric Vehicle Consumer Experience with Transformer-based Deep Learning. Patterns. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2020.100195

2. Marchetto, D.J., Ha, S., Dharur, S., & Asensio, O.I. (2020). Extracting User Behavior at Electric Vehicle Charging Stations with Transformer Deep Learning Models. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2020). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2020.2020.11613

1. Ha, S., Marchetto, D.J., Burke, M.E., & Asensio, O.I. (2020). Detecting Behavioral Failures in Emerging Electric Vehicle Infrastructure using Supervised Text Classification Algorithms. In Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. 20-03461.

Dissertation Project

My dissertation is based around the motivation of graduate students. The inspiration for this research came from a few different sources. In a discussion during a motivation psychology seminar in Spring 2021, there was a brief comment on the psychological impact of someone having to give up on a goal. And quiting a doctoral program was used as an example of a severely damaging event. A few months later, I was browsing r/GradSchool and was noticing that many of the posts were quite negative. This lead me to question why so many graduate students complain online instead of quiting and I thought back to the comment on psychological damage. From that, I myself became motivated to utilize my skills in data science and psychology to better understand the motivational experiences of the community so that recommendations for improving the graduate student experience could be made.

Chapter Topics

1. Topic Modeling
• Primary Method: Transformer-based topic models.
2. Sentiment Analysis
• Primary Method: Transformer-based classification models.
• Secondary Method: Data labeling through Active Learning.
3. Motivation Psychology
• Theoretical Framework: Self-Determination Theory.
• Study Design: Sequential explanatory mixed-method study design.
• Primary Method: Structural equation models.
• Scales Used or Adapted: Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale, Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Degree Persistance Scale, Subjective Performance Scale

Once progress on my writing has progressed sufficiently, I will add synopses of each chapter below. Check back for updates!