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Kimia earned her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in Developmental Psychology. Her research focuses on the development of mathematical (math) skills across childhood. Specifically, her work explores how children's cognitive abilities uniquely relate to their math achievement over time and how social influences, such as parents and educators, support children's math learning. Kimia's work incorporates multi-method measurement approaches, including parent- and teacher-reports, child self-report, and direct assessments of children to gain a deeper understanding of cognitive and social predictors of children's math achievement and uses complex statistical techniques to understand these dynamic associations. She values conducting impactful research that can be leveraged to inform practice, policy, and intervention work.

Currently, Kimia is a Postdoctoral Fellow with RME and provides research support on SCALE, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education that examines the efficacy of a small group math intervention to improve faction knowledge and math outcomes for students experiencing math difficulties.

Selected Publications

Akhavein, K., Clark, C.A.C., Nelson, J.M., Espy, K.A., & Finch, J.E. (2024). Children’s arithmetic strategy use trajectories: Exploring the roles of executive functions and socio- demographic characteristics. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 249, 106109.

Akhavein, K., Clark, C.A.C., Nelson, J.M., Espy, K.A., & Finch, J.E. (2023). The longitudinal contributions of preschool executive functions and early math abilities to arithmetic skills in elementary school. Cognitive Development, 68, 10138.

DePascale, M., Feng Y., Lin, G.C., Barkin, R., Akhavein, K., Tavassolie, N., Ghil, E., Gaye, F., Buschkuehl, M., Ramani, G.B, & Jaeggi, S.M. (2023). Uncovering the reciprocal relationship between domain-specific and domain-general skills: Combined numerical and working memory training improves children’s mathematical knowledge. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 102252.