Name: Jimena Cosso

Title: Assistant Professor of Education

Department: Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education

Phone: 814-863-2415

Email: mpc6347@psu.edu

Office address: 230 CEDAR Building

Directory entry: https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dr-jimena-cosso

Jimena Cosso joins the Penn State College of Education as an assistant professor of education (critical quantitative) after having recently completed her doctorate in educational psychology and research methodology at Purdue University. 

Cosso’s research focuses on exploring the home environment of Latine families and its association with dual language learners’ (DLL) early skills, with a focused look at early mathematics skills. In her research, Cosso uses 'Latine' as a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American origin.

Her work addresses Latine families’ funds of knowledge to support the development of school readiness skills and contextual factors that affect DLL children’s skills readiness. 

Additionally, Cosso has worked as a human rights facilitator and an afterschool program leader in the New York City public school system. 

She said wants to be a source of encouragement for her students so they will not be fearful of taking on a challenge. 

“The first course that I am going to teach is analysis and interpretation of statistics, and I know that many students come to these types of courses thinking they are ‘not good enough’ or they don’t like statistics,” Cosso said. “I want to say that it is OK. You don’t have to love statistics, you don’t need to be the best in statistics, but we can all do it. So, my approach will be to tell them ‘Don’t be afraid, and if we can work together, we can do it.’”