Helena Goldbaum (she/her)

LIFE Fellow since 2026, University of Virginia

I am a 2nd-year PhD student in the Educational Psychology–Applied Developmental Sciences program at the University of Virginia. I am interested in how educational contexts shape children's curiosity and learning. Under the mentorship of Jamie Jirout, my research unfolds on three fronts: (1) how instructional practices can promote curiosity, (2) how these curiosity-promoting strategies can produce more robust learning, and (3) what children's inferences are about AI-powered devices designed to teach with curiosity-promoting strategies. Prior to joining the program, I worked in Kelsey Lucca's developmental psychology lab at Arizona State University and in Elizabeth Spelke's lab at Harvard University. I welcome you to explore my research and reach out with any questions — I'd love to hear from you!

Selected Publications

Goldbaum, H., Hutchins, N., Krissinger, A., Burke, R. A, & Jirout, J. J. (2026). Prompting children's curiosity through questions: An experimental test of framing in science learning. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 48. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0vw89503   

Vaisarova, J., Saguid, L., Kupfer, A. S., Goldbaum, H. S., & Lucca, K. (2024). Exploring the creativity-curiosity link in early childhood. Journal of Creativity, 34(3), Article 100090. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2024.100090