President's Awards

Individual Award
(Early Career Research Excellence Award)

Dr SUN Daner
孫丹兒博士
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Information Technology

Dr SUN Daner’s research areas lie in the intersection of the design and development of educational platforms, ICT-supported learning, mobile learning, technology-oriented STEM education, AI in education, and computational thinking and higher-order thinking skills.

Dr Sun is a productive researcher with an impressive publishing track record. In the past three years, she has published 17 journal papers, 13 of which were published in top-tier journals, such as Computers & Education (JCR top 5%) and the British Journal of Educational Technology (JCR top 10%). Dr Sun also edited four special journal issues and published several book chapters. Her outstanding research contribution won her the 2022 APSCE Early Career Research Award. In 2021 Dr Sun was ranked 15th among the 20 most influential researchers in mobile learning in the world.

As Principal Investigator, Dr Sun secured one General Research Fund (GRF) project on developing a highly customized learning platform with adaptive scaffoldings and responsive mechanisms to facilitate student mathematics problem-solving. The project will promote and enhance technology-supported mathematics education in K-12.

Dr Sun is also devoted to professional service. She has chaired and organized several renowned international conferences, including the Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education, and the International Conference on Computers in Education as SIG chair, as well as chairs of teacher forums and sub-conferences. She is an associate editor of Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (RPTEL) and an editorial board member of Educational Technology & Society (ET&S).

Dr Sun’s commitment and hard work extend beyond professional service. She actively delivers teacher professional development and research seminars at universities in mainland China, such as Zhejiang University, East China Normal University and South China Normal University, and local schools. So far, she had delivered a total of 13 talks on innovative pedagogies, STEM education, and ICT-supported learning for educators and researchers to share her research and achieve knowledge transfer. Dr Sun strives to design and deliver teacher professional development courses to facilitate the adoption of computational thinking and STEM education in primary and secondary schools.