Staff

Dr. Felix Wao is the Founding Director of the Office of Academic Assessment at the University of Oklahoma (OU). Working collaboratively with faculty across all disciplines, he oversees and supports academic quality efforts including strategies for direct, performance-based assessment of student learning for academic programs and the core curriculum that reflect current trends and best practices in higher education. He chairs the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Learning Outcomes Assessment (PACLOA) and is a member of the Provost’s Advisory Committee on General Education (PACGEO), and Academic Program Review Committee. His current research focuses on strategies for blending assessment processes and analytics to enhance student learning at the institutional and program levels.

Dr. Wao joined OU in 2013 after serving as Founding Director of Assessment at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.  Previously, he was Associate Director of Assessment at the University of South Florida (USF) for more than 5 years where he oversaw the development and implementation of assessment of academic programs and administrative units, coordinated assessment of the general education program, and played a key role in development of a system to manage assessment of academic programs and administrative units.  He co-chaired both Academic Assessment Council and Administrative Assessment Council and was a member of Florida Board of Governor’s work group that oversaw the review of statewide assessment policies for undergraduate programs. He has taught graduate courses in Curriculum Development and Program Evaluation as well as undergraduate course in Social Science Statistics. 

Dr. Wao has published and given numerous conference presentations on various themes of learning outcomes assessment in higher education at regional, national and international assessment and research conferences including Association for Institutional Research (AIR), Assessment Institute, Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and World Journalism Education Congress.  He holds a BS in Mathematics and Religious Studies from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, MA and PhD in Higher Education Administration and Policy Studies from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.  He is a member of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) Peer Review Corps and a Mentor of the HLC Assessment Academy.

Dr. Christina Smith joined the Office of Academic Assessment at the University of Oklahoma (OU) in August 2022. Previously, she worked at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) for nearly eight years, where her primary roles included working as an Academic Advisor for the College of Education and then as a Research Analyst in the Office of Institutional Assessment before joining OU. Additionally, she serves as an adjunct professor and has taught classes such as General Psychology, Adolescent Psychology, Child & Adolescent Development, Theories of Learning, and Competency Motivation.

Dr. Smith holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Oklahoma State University (OSU) with a concentration in assessment and statistical methods. Her professional research interests include incorporating different analytic techniques into institutional survey analyses in addition to exploring the predictors and outcomes of different types of student engagement. Her personal research interests involve adolescent cyberbullying and socioemotional development and behaviors in early adulthood. She has peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals such as the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Journal of Adolescence, and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. She has also presented at several national conferences including the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), American Psychological Association (APA), Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), and Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood (SSEA).

Maria Idrees is a fourth-year doctoral student in Learning Sciences working under Dr. Michael Crowson in the Department of Educational Psychology. Currently she is working as a graduate research assistant at the office of academic assessment, OU, since the 2022 academic year. Her research focus is on the effect of growth mindset on the academic outcomes of students, and associated mediators and moderators (e.g., learning environment). Maria worked as a research assistant on an NSF-funded project identifying and assessing the factors critical for STEM development. The four-year research engaged students for their college career and beyond their graduation. Maria has also worked as a teaching assistant and taught motivation and classroom management courses to undergraduates during summer 2023 and 2024. Maria has also worked as a lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Lahore Leads University, Lahore, Pakistan.

She has also presented at several national conferences, including the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and the National Consortium for Instruction & Cognition (NCIC). 

Olivia Perrin is a fourth year PhD student in Cognitive Psychology with a Quantitative Psychology minor working under Dr. Edward Cokely. Her research focuses on the assessment of decision-making skills and risk literacy. This work considers how human abilities influence decisions and real-world outcomes (e.g., detecting misinformation online). Prior to joining the Office of Academic Assessment, Olivia taught and co-taught several courses, including elements of assessment at Northern Michigan University, as well as several sections of Research Methods at OU.