Project Associate
5701 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA
University of Pittsburgh (Doctoral Candidate in Social and Comparative Analysis in Education, present)
University of Pittsburgh (Masters of Information Science, 2000)
University of Pittsburgh (Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, 1997)
Edinboro University (BA in Anthropology, History (minor), 1995)
Instruction and Learning
Animal-Assisted Activities in Higher Education
Nicole Camaioni is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Social and Comparative Analysis in Education Program at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2005, she received her Secondary Instructional I Teaching Certificate and has been a Social Studies educator in the Western Pennsylvania area for the past 7 years. During this time, she participated in programs such as Take Your Legislator To School Day. This was a community wide day of programs and events focused on building a relationship between the local school district and the Pennsylvania State Legislators.
Nicole also participated in various global education opportunities. She has taken courses at the Prague Center for Public Policy and Tallinn University. These courses focused on European history, the political landscape of Georgia, and lobbying in Brussels.
Her research interests include student involvement, persistence, and retention in higher education and social capital development in higher education. Her focus is on using animal-assisted activities to achieve these goals. Nicole’s dissertation work concentrates on a single case of animal-assisted activity in higher education – the Campus Canines Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Camaioni, Nicole. (2012). A pilot participant observation study of the Campus Canines Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Poster session presented at the International Society of Anthrozoology 2012 Conference, in Cambridge, UK.
Camaioni, Nicole. (2011). Participant observation study of the Campus Canines Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Paper presented at the Pennsylvania Educational Research Association Conference, October, in Philadelphia.
Camaioni, Nicole. (2011). Participant observation study of the Campus Canines Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Paper presented at the annual Council for Graduate Studies in Education Research Conference, in Pittsburgh.
