Dr. Hayes is passionate about developing, evaluating, and iterating on technology used for learning in formal and informal environments. She has designed and created educational XR experiences over the past decade and works tirelessly to encourage students at all levels to pursue STEM education and STEM careers with the explicit goal of expanding and diversifying STEM education and the STEM workforce. Her efforts to recruit students into STEM range from public exhibits of Virtual Reality, to K12 classroom visits, to app development camps for middle and high school-aged students to hosting interdisciplinary game development events.
Dr. Hayes leverages her research funded by NSF, NIH, the Department of Defense and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to inform Learning Technology design and implementation across learners from K12 and university levels to the workforce.