Wonkyung Jang

Wonkyung "Won" Jang, an assistant professor in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at The University of Oklahoma, specializes in early childhood education/intervention (Birth-through-Kindergarten) and data science. He explores how early care and education (ECE) and early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) stakeholders can embrace the power of "Big Data" to help children overcome developmental challenges, provide the simple joy of play, promote teacher well-being, and tackle pressing social justice challenges.

Jang is particularly interested in uncovering how variations in individual children's physical, social, and linguistic environments shape language and literacy development. He aims to apply this understanding to personalize children's learning experiences within inclusive classroom settings, tailoring evidence-based practices to fulfill the local needs and circumstances of young learners. Employing machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, Jang seeks to better capture individual differences in language development among children with diverse developmental, cultural, linguistic, and educational needs. Additionally, he explores strategies for improving the recruitment and retention of ECE and EI/ECSE teachers by promoting their well-being.

Jang received his doctoral degree in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in 2022. He earned a Master of Science degree in Statistics and a Graduate Certificate in Computational Linguistics en route to his Ph.D. For the past decade, Jang has worked as a teacher and a university-based researcher focused on ECE and EI/ECSE. He is the Principal Investigator of the AI Lab for Transforming Education for Young Children, leading federal and internal grants, and is a PI/Co-PI/Co-I of grants totaling $2,900,000.