About

Juan Alvarez is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, starting from August 2025. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earned in 2004 and 2000 respectively, and a B.Sc. in Electronics and Communications from ITESM-CCM obtained in 1997. His academic career includes positions as a Lecturer and Visiting Lecturer at various institutions, as well as postdoctoral fellowships in Canada at York University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Saskatchewan. His research interests encompass applied probability and mathematical modeling of polymers and biophysical systems, with specific focus areas such as the configurational and statistical properties of lattice models for polymers, steric stabilization and flocculation of colloidal dispersions, adsorption and localization of random copolymers, and ion transport. Alvarez is actively involved in engineering education, working on improving study skills among undergraduate students and exploring innovative teaching methods, including the use of AI and concept maps in communication systems. He has contributed to the academic community through numerous publications in journals and conference presentations, emphasizing topics like polymer physics, communication systems, and engineering pedagogy.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Medical education
• Psychology
• Aerospace engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Reliability engineering
• Medicine
• Pedagogy

Selected publications

• BOARD # 95: WIP: Students’ reflections on their attitude and how it affects their performance in a CS Discrete Math course.

  2025-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• WIP: Promoting Undergraduate Student Success through Faculty Mentoring

  2025-08-21

  article
  PublisherDOI

• WIP: Students’ Emotional and Study Strategies Responses to ECE Exam Success and Failure

  2025-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• WIP: Students’ metacognition and how it relates to their performance in conceptual problem-solving introductory Engineering courses.

  2025-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Towards a Transformative Framework for AR Learning and Instruction Through the Lenses of Research and Practice: An Interdisciplinary Community Workshop

  2025-06-14

  articleOpen access

  The proposal describes an interdisciplinary community workshop that is executed at iLRN2025. The goal of the workshop is to gather insights from the community concerning their research on and use of AR in education. It is a first step to build a foundation for a broader project creating an evidence- and experience-based framework for the transformation of research on and practice with AR for learning and instruction. In this workshop, members of the iLRN community will have the opportunity to share their personal experiences with AR in education, explore use cases of AR including the potentials of novel, innovative technologies, and connect these with pedagogical theories and frameworks. Through small group brainstorming and discussion sessions, a participatory approach will be adopted with the goal of collecting various perspectives and experiences. The multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives of researchers and practitioners from various fields (e.g., teachers, instructional designers, learning facilitators, museum curators) will be combined in this workshop. With the interdisciplinary insights and novel connections from the workshop a starting point will be formed for the co-creation of a theory-based and practice-inspired framework for the implementation of AR technology in instructional settings.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• DEXOP: A Device for Robotic Transfer of Dexterous Human Manipulation

  ArXiv.org · 2025-09-04

  preprintOpen access

  We introduce perioperation, a paradigm for robotic data collection that sensorizes and records human manipulation while maximizing the transferability of the data to real robots. We implement this paradigm in DEXOP, a passive hand exoskeleton designed to maximize human ability to collect rich sensory (vision + tactile) data for diverse dexterous manipulation tasks in natural environments. DEXOP mechanically connects human fingers to robot fingers, providing users with direct contact feedback (via proprioception) and mirrors the human hand pose to the passive robot hand to maximize the transfer of demonstrated skills to the robot. The force feedback and pose mirroring make task demonstrations more natural for humans compared to teleoperation, increasing both speed and accuracy. We evaluate DEXOP across a range of dexterous, contact-rich tasks, demonstrating its ability to collect high-quality demonstration data at scale. Policies learned with DEXOP data significantly improve task performance per unit time of data collection compared to teleoperation, making DEXOP a powerful tool for advancing robot dexterity. Our project page is at https://dex-op.github.io.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• WIP: Gamification as an Engagement Tool in ECE Courses

  2025-08-21

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the Impact of Weekly In-class Pop Quizzes on Student Performance in a Fundamental ECE Course

  2024-02-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract This work evaluates the effect of weekly in-class pop quizzes on the learning outcomes of ECE sophomore-level undergraduate students in a signals & systems course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The quizzes pursued two goals: to increase class attendance and to motivate students to keep up with the material in a timely manner. While the quizzes may help achieve both goals, in-class pop quizzes may also result in the elevation of students' stress as well as they may negatively impact the students' attitude toward the instructor. We analyze the overall impact of the quizzes on the students' final grades from multiple perspectives. In addition, we examine the students' opinion about the quizzes and the instructor. Finally, we evaluate if the quizzes encouraged students to attend lectures and stay on top of the material. Our findings show that final grades are marginally negatively affected by the quizzes. However, the main reason for that is not the quizzes themselves but the large number of students (∼27%) who missed multiple quizzes. In fact, the quizzes resulted in improving the final grades for those students who attended most of them. In addition, our results indicate that the students agree that quizzes helped them from multiple perspectives: encouraging attendance, promoting frequent review of course material, and preparing them for exams. Despite that, attendance decreased significantly toward the end of the semester. Our findings also demonstrate that students experienced a high level of stress due to quizzes. However, no evidence was found that the quizzes had a significant negative effect on the students' attitude toward the instructors

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Board 56: Work in Progress: How Do Students Spend Their Time Studying in a CS Discrete Math Course?

  2024-08-03

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Researchers in Computer Science education are working to identify student features that play a role in course performance. Specifically, researchers identified motivation, certain study behaviors, a sense of belonging, and a growth mindset as essential factors. Most prior work focuses on intro to programming courses. In this work we focus on a Discrete Math course which is a required gateway course in the computing sequence. This course involves conceptual problem solving that requires students to think about a problem and conceptually understand it before starting to work on it. These study behaviors might be new to students and different from study behaviors used in programming courses. In this work, we aim to replicate prior work and search for a correlation between final grades in our course and motivation. We aim to turn that information into an intervention by offering advice to students on study behaviors that might link to success. We have identified the following research questions regarding students in a Discrete Math class in an introductory CS sequence: RQ1: Do students' expectations to do well, value of the course, and time spent studying contribute to their course outcome? RQ2: Can students who do not expect to do well in the course when they first enter it, can nevertheless engage in study behaviors that lead to positive course outcomes? During Spring 2023 we surveyed 478 students in a Discrete Math course at a large state University. Students answered a questionnaire about their motivation as they enter the course. Students were also given two additional surveys, in the middle and at the end of the term, to measure how much time they spent on each resource. The resources included the textbook, practice problems, office hours, outside resources, lecture notes, and reading solutions. We found that expectation to do well and intending to put effort into the course contribute to doing well in the course. We found that overall students who spend more time do not do better in the course perhaps because their time is not spent effectively. Yet, students who spend more time on practice exams performed better in the class. This is especially true for students who come into the course with low expectation to do well. This suggests that students can still do well in the course even if they come in without background knowledge. In future work, we plan to examine how we might turn this information into an intervention. We plan to use this to design interventions specifically tailored to our course. We hope that our methodology will be easy to implement and useful to instructors of other conceptual problem-solving classes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Board 89: Work in Progress: Promoting Undergraduate Student Success through Faculty Mentoring in Engineering Education

  2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Medical education
  • Psychology

  Abstract The transition from high school to college can present significant challenges for students, creating a need for a strong support system. In modern engineering education, mentoring has emerged as an important component in supporting the growth and success of undergraduate students. It is generally recognized that relationships with faculty members impact student success[1]. Mentoring has gained significant attention for its role in providing personalized guidance and fostering a sense of belonging within the community. Mentors can help students to deal with academic challenges and make informed decisions[2]. Furthermore, the mentor-mentee relationship establishes a nurturing atmosphere dedicated to enhancing academic performance. Most of the research in this area focuses on mentoring research activities between students and advisors, as well as peer advising. However, there has been limited attention given to a more general advising role. This role includes assisting in course selection, technical interests, finding internships or research opportunities, graduate school applications, extracurricular activities, study abroad, offering support for personal or mental health concerns, etc. Some work has been done in this direction[3]. This work in progress aims to understand the needs and expectations of students who are supported by a faculty mentoring process in an Electrical and Computer Engineering department in a large public university. Currently, the program involves students meeting their assigned faculty mentors once per semester. However, the approach varies among different faculty members. Meetings can take the form of one-on-one private conversations or group sessions, allowing for peer mentoring. They can also occur either in person or online. The topics covered during these sessions are diverse, as previously mentioned. One-on-one mentoring can provides highly personalized guidance and support, while group mentoring can offer diverse perspectives from the student peers and provide networking opportunities. Peer mentoring has been shown to increase both retention and self-esteem among college students [4]. These mentoring meetings are mandatory for students, and failing to attend the meeting results in a hold on their upcoming semester's class registration. Students are responsible for scheduling appointments based on faculty members' availability calendars. Three faculty members within the department requested their mentees to voluntarily participate in a survey aimed to understand their experiences and preferences regarding various aspects of the mentoring process. This includes topics covered during the meetings or that would be beneficial to cover, resources provided or that would be beneficial to provide, as well as the duration and frequency of these meetings, among other aspects. Additionally, these three faculty members themselves completed a survey to gain a better understanding of their perspective on the mentoring process. In this work, we discuss the findings from these surveys and include recommendations for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the mentoring process. References: [1] M. S. Jaradat, and M. B. Mustafa, "Academic Advising and Maintaining Major: Is There a Relation?," Social Sciences, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 151, 2017. [2] Lucietto, A. M., & Dell, E., & Cooney, E. M., & Russell, L. A., & Schott, E. (2019, June), Engineering Technology Undergraduate Students: A Survey of Demographics and Mentoring Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. [3] Banerjee, J. K. (2020, June), Mentoring Undergraduate Students in Engineering Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34968 [4] R. Collings, V. Swanson, and R. Watkins, "The impact of peer mentoring on levels of student wellbeing, integration and retention: a controlled comparative evaluation of residential students in UK higher education," Higher Education, vol. 68, no. 6, pp. 927- 942, 2014.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin Cosman

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  101 shared

• Jennifer Amos

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  92 shared

• Yael Gertner

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  80 shared

• Olga Mironenko

  York University

  48 shared

• Yang Shao

  University of Science and Technology Beijing

  16 shared

• Yang Shao

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  16 shared

• Jennifer G. Cromley

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  16 shared

• Zhengyan Ye

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  16 shared

Awards & honors

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