Tania Cruz

Tania Cruz is a Ph.D. in Educational Statistics and Research Methods student in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. Originally from Costa Rica, she holds a B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Costa Rica. She worked as a research assistant in the Human Development group at this intuition’s Psychological Research Institute studying conceptual development and narrative abilities in preschool children. She later received a M.Sc. in Child Development and Education from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. For her thesis, she worked with Dutch and Costa Rican parents, studying the cultural and socioeconomic background differences on their beliefs about play and on their guidance strategies of exploratory play with their children.

Prior to joining UD, she worked as a project manager for Dr. Steve Piantadosi at UC Berkeley. She managed the National Science Foundation-funded project “Numerical Cognition Research with an Indigenous Amazonian Population” and studied how numerical cognition develops in the absence of formal schooling.

Education

• M.Sc., Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2016–2018
• Lic., Psychology, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica, 2015–2017
• B.Sc., Psychology, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica, 2010–2014

Professional Experience

• Graduate Research Assistant, School of Education, University of Delaware, 2020–present
• Lab/Project Manager, Computation and Language Lab, University of California, Berkeley, 2018–2020
• Consultant, Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, 2017–2018
• Research Intern, Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, 2017
• Research Assistant, Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, 2016–2017
• Research Assistant, Institute of Psychological Research, University of Costa Rica, 2014–2015

Honors and Awards

• Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship, University of Amsterdam, 2016–2018
• Honors Scholarship, University of Costa Rica, 2010–2015

Publications

• Carmiol, A.M., Cruz, T. & Molinari, M. (2014). Promoviendo el Desarrollo Conceptual en las Aulas de Preescolar: Una Sistematización de Hallazgos de Investigación [Promoting Conceptual Development in Preschool Classrooms: A Systematic Review of Research Findings]. Actualidades Investigativas en Educación, 14(1), 1-30.

Presentations

• Cruz, T. (June 2019). The origins of exact counting in the absence of schooling. In Language, culture, and numerical thinking in non-industrialized cultures. Symposium conducted at 2019 Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society Conference in Ottawa, Canada.
• Van Schijndel, T and Cruz, T. (August 2018). Cultural differences in parental guidance of preschoolers’ play. In T. Reuter, (Chair) Guided play in early stem education – Adults’ process competencies and children’s outcomes. Symposium conducted at the EARLI-SIG 5 Conference at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.