_______________________________

Darden College of Education

Teaching & Learning
Norfolk, Virginia 23529-0161
Phone: (757) 683-3284

January 3, 2022

To whom it may concern,

It is a pleasure to write this letter of recommendation for Maram Aizaz. I have known Maram
since summer 2021 when she started as my graduate research assistant (GRA) working with me
on a grant at Old Dominion University.

Maram was selected out of 25 students interested in the position from around the university. She
caught my attention with her prior work on her CV, and she demonstrated excellent intrapersonal
communication skills during the interview. During the past year, Maram has been a joy to work
with revealing further skills and characteristics that have greatly supported the work on the grant.
Maram’s work has involved, the in-depth systematic review of existing literature, text mining,
data gathering, analysis, developing data visualizations, and authorship on academic
publications. Maram is currently part of four different academic publications and has been
acknowledged on at least two others.

During her work with me, Maram has developed various research skills including using
grounded and a priori coding. While working on these research projects, I have found Maram to
be a creative thinker who is able to take minimal instructions, such as “See how you can organize
and visually present these data” and she has presented thinking and work at an advanced Ph.D.
level of depth and quality. Maram has the capability to understand new concepts quickly and
apply them in new situations. She needs minimal direction and has an excellent work ethic with
excellent time management skills, task focus, and quality of work.

Maram worked within a group of six graduate research assistants, four of the six GRAs were
Ph.D. students. She works very well with all the GRAs and also, trained people in the group in
data visualization techniques and also in coding skills. During her work, Maram passed the
Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) research, ethics, and compliance training.

Old Dominion University is an equal opportunity affirmative action institution.

In addition to her GRA work, Maram worked with me as an Intern, then Lead Intern for the
mEducation Alliance which is an NGO focused on supporting learners in developing countries.
For this work, she explored the research on what work was being conducted in developing
countries. Maram initially started as an intern working with two other Ph.D. students. This role
was quickly advanced to be Lead Intern as she then used her organizational, and intrapersonal
skills to work directly with the mEducation Alliance to determine what the group (including
myself) was working on, and highlight deadlines.

I give Maram Aizaz my highest recommendation. Please contact me if you would like any
further information.

Kind regards

Helen Crompton (Ph.D.)

Associate Professor of Instructional Technology
Old Dominion University
Director of the Virtual Reality Lab

Director of the Technology Enhanced Learning Lab (TELL)

Email: Crompton@odu.edu

Tel: 757-683-7076

Old Dominion University is an equal opportunity affirmative action institution.