Biography

María Jesús Rodríguez Triana has recently become a Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the University of Valladolid. Formerly, she was an Associate Professor since 2021, in Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining at Tallinn University (Estonia). She completed my doctoral studies at the GSIC-EMIC group, receiving her PhD in Information and Communication Technologies from the University of Valladolid (UVa) in 2014. That same year, she joined the REACT group at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL – one of the top technical universities in the world) in Switzerland, as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2016, She joined Tallinn University as a Senior Research Fellow. In 2022, she was accredited as Contratado Doctor (CDOC) by the Agencia para la Calidad del Sistema Universitario en Castilla y León (ACSUCYL).
Her research work is multi-disciplinary, applying computer science and digital technologies to education at different levels. She has made notable contributions to knowledge in areas such as learning design and learning analytics, especially in blended and ubiquitous learning environments, with special emphasis on pedagogical approaches such as collaborative and inquiry-based learning. The contributions themselves range from technological system architectures and data models to conceptual frameworks and novel analysis methods. To develop these contributions, she has applied methods and techniques from both computer science (e.g., machine learning, human-centred design) and social sciences (qualitative data analysis, statistical methods, etc.). Currently, she is investigating the adoption of learning analytics in authentic scenarios (at classroom, institutional and community levels), including aspects such as ethics and privacy, visualisations and data literacy, pedagogically-grounded analytics and algorithmic accountability.
These contributions have been the object of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, including 18 JCR-indexed journal papers (12 Q1) and 17 publications in GGS-listed conferences (3 CORE A, 9 CORE B). Further, these publications have had ample impact on the technology-enhanced learning community, gathering 2,416 citations in Google Scholar (h-index=23) and 853 citations in the Web of Science (h-index=15). The interest of the scientific community in her contributions is also reflected in multiple awards, such as the Estonian National Research Award (2020), the Best research paper (2016) and Best student paper (2011) at the EC-TEL conference, or the Special mention to the best doctoral thesis in technology-enhanced learning by the eMadrid network (2015). The contribution and leadership within this research community are also reflected in her activity as Chair of 3 international conferences (2 CORE B), among the best in that area.
She has been involved in the writing and execution of multiple educational technology research projects at the national and international levels (entailing WP/task leader roles). These projects (with a combined worth exceeding 25 million euros) have focused on technologies to support inquiry learning (GO-LAB, IMAILE, Next-Lab, GO-GA), collaborative learning (SOFOCLES, RESET), or learning analytics to support decision-making both at the classroom and institutional levels (H2020 WIDESPREAD - CEITER, PRG1634, EEE). She has also participated in knowledge transfer projects at the European level, such as Erasmus+ projects on the application of learning analytics in physical and digital spaces (LLP - PREATY), or to support learning design by the educational community (LLP-METIS). These projects have enabled her to develop a wide network of international contacts (e.g., I have co-authored publications with more than 130 researchers from foreign institutions), which is regularly reflected in her publications and funding proposals.
She has performed research stays at the Université Joseph Fourier (France, 3 months, 2013), the University of Twente (Netherlands, 1 month, 2019) and the Univerisity of Valladolid (Spain, 4 months, 2021), aside from my long-term appointments at EPFL (Switzerland, 48 months, 2014-2018) and Tallinn University (Estonia, 79 months + 8 months of parental leave, 2016-2023), including a 20-month period of dual appointment in Switzerland and Estonia. She has also acted as a research project evaluator for the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond foundation (Sweden).
She has co-supervised successfully five PhD theses: Gerti Pishtari (2 JCR Q1, 2 journal, and 3 conference papers), Maka Eradze (3 journal and 2 conference papers), Anu Tammeleht (4 journal papers and 1 conference presentation), Shashi Kant Shankar (1 JCR Q3, 1 journal, and 3 conference papers and 1 book chapter), Merike Saar (1 JCR Q1, 1 journal, and 1 conference paper); and one master thesis (Maarja Hallik). Further, she is currently (co)supervising two more doctoral students.