William Rayo

William Rayo received his PhD in Psychology with a focus in Applied Cognition from Oregon State University. As an assistant professor of teaching his overarching goal is to design educational experiences that provide students and undergraduate research assistants with the opportunity and tools to engage in critical thinking, analysis, and metacognition that will help them beyond the class or lab.

Dr. Rayo is currently recruiting undergraduate students to join his lab for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Dr. Rayo's teaching and research interests center around how learners mentally represent knowledge and how instructional approaches can be informed by individual differences. For example, he found that the effectiveness of learning strategies (e.g. retrieval practice / illustrative diagrams) was moderated by the student’s ability to construct a mental representation of the text they are reading. Importantly when students were provided with both forms of support, they performed worse. 

Key Takeaway for Educators: Remember Goldilocks when choosing instructional aids. Too much support can inadvertently overwhelm students and end up increasing cognitive load; too little support can leave others struggling. Tailor the level of support to meet the diverse needs of your students.

• Can tools from network science help us map how individual differences help shape learner's conceptual knowledge structures?
• Can we use this to inform personalized, evidence-based instructional design?
• How can we utilize AI to develop personalized learning interventions that take cognitive diversity into account?