Mladen earned a doctoral degree in Educational Technology and Learning Design at Simon Fraser University in 2019. Before joining the Faculty of Information Technology, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mladen’s research interests span the fields of natural language processing, predictive modeling, computational linguistics, and educational psychology. He focuses on the development and evaluation of computer-based writing systems that monitor undergraduates’ writing activity and generate learning analytics to promote self-regulated learning and deep engagement with disciplinary content. Mladen proposed the methods for automatic identification of knowledge transforming in multi-source writing and fine grained analysis of students’ online discussion posts.