Rachel Luchmun

Dr. Rachel Luchmun is a senior research scientist at the EdPlus Action Lab at Arizona State University. Action Lab is a learning laboratory inside EdPlus that provides key research findings to improve the ASU learning environment. With an emphasis on online learning, our predictive and evaluative analyses support student success and persistence. Action Lab works on transformational projects to increase the scale of learning through rigorous and multidisciplinary scholarly research committed to improving equity, inclusivity, and the quality of education for learners everywhere. Since joining the Action Lab team in 2020 as the sole qualitative researcher, Dr. Luchmun has created research protocols that provide key insights about the student experience and expanded the power of existing Action Lab projects. Her research expertise is informed by her background in sociocultural anthropology (participant observation, interviews, focus groups, text and document analysis). 

Dr. Luchmun is passionate about centering students' voices and experiences in research that contributes to changes in ASU courses and policies to bolster student success. With a strong belief in higher education's transformative power, she critically looks at what barriers still exist at ASU, both at the course level and the university level, and provides research-informed recommendations for improvement. She has extensive experience working with diverse populations. Her dissertation research focused on the identity and transnational connections of an immigrant group in Canada. She was a research assistant for the Social Entrepreneurship and Career Pathways Study (SECPS), a project that provided entrepreneurship training to underserved community college students in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. She also has experience in project evaluation, including the creation of logic models.

Within ASU, Dr. Luchmun has worked with campus-immersion and digital-immersion students at ASU and investigated high-enrolment undergraduate classes. She provides qualitative research leadership that supports multiple collaborative research projects that support student success across the university. Such projects include the Indigenous Student Success Workgroup (ISSW) and the Black Student Success Initiative (BSSI) data sub-group. Dr. Luchmun is also the lead qualitative researcher for the Dreamscape Learn project, a collaboration between ASU and Dreamscape Immersive that integrates narratively-driven virtual reality experiences in the classroom.  

Dr. Luchmun thrives in interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment, where researchers with different expertise work together toward the same goal. She takes on projects where she works closely with other members of the Action Lab, researchers at other units of the university, and key faculty and staff. She enjoys discussing research methods, findings and implications with a wide audience, as she believes that innovation and change rely on robust sharing of information. Dr. Luchmun is currently building the qualitative team at the Action Lab to expand research capabilities and continue to provide high quality research findings that support ASU's goals.

Dr. Luchmun’s drive for improving equity in higher education is informed by her experiences as a disabled, immigrant woman of color.