About Cornelia Trahan
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University of Rhode Island
Cornelia Trahan is a Ph.D. student in the doctoral program offered jointly by the University of Rhode Island (URI) and Rhode Island College (RIC). Before enrolling in the program, she worked extensively in promotion and development in the nonprofit and corporate sectors in the New England area. In 2018, she completed her Master of Education, Adult Education, at the University of Rhode Island, Providence campus. She presented at the Association for Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) Conference in Newport, Rhode Island and was awarded the ACHE Graduate Student Conference Grant. She also presented at the Adult Higher Education Alliance (AHEA) Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. As she fulfilled her graduate coursework, she observed unanticipated consequences as digital literacy competencies increased, initially in her own experience and then in her classmates. As a Ph.D. student, this led to her ongoing exploration of research interest(s) that address the intersection of critical media literacy, identity formation, leadership development, and storytelling. Also, she is studying the relationships between the affordance of learning with emerging media and technology tools and its effect on civic engagement. In her work as a graduate research assistant at URI, she supports the mission of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholar Program to address the critical need for K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.Â