Heather L. Reichmuth
Contact: reichmu1@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://michiganstate.academia.edu/HeatherReichmuth
Research Focus: Heather Reichmuth’s research focus is on the language and literacy practices of bi/multilingual families with implications for family engagement and multilingual student learning in schools. Her research agenda is informed by her 15 years teaching experience as an English as a Foreign Language teacher in pre-K-12 and university level schools in South Korea, as well as her own experience raising a multilingual family both overseas and, in the U.S. Her research strives to support immigrant and transnational families by underscoring the language and literacy assets that multilingual children and youth bring to schools. Ultimately, her goal is for teachers and schools to better engage multilingual families, support English and home language maintenance, and provide equitable learning for all students.
Areas of Expertise:
Literacy Education
Family, Community, and Schools
Teaching English as a Second Language
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Curriculum and Instruction
Anara Akhmetova
Contact: akhmeto2@msu.edu
Research Focus: Edtech Apps have become extremely popular and are incorporated into lessons by teachers as they adjust to the new way of teaching. As I started reflecting upon my own lessons and observing those of my colleagues, it became apparent that we sometimes use these applications and platforms for the sake of using it and that not enough thought is put into considering the true effectiveness and suitability thereof. Although teachers have attended and we have conducted numerous workshops on how to use technology, I realized that those workshops mostly focused on skills development and not necessarily on the way it should be integrated and implemented. We have started to explore this topic through action research but the limitations of action research highlighted the necessity of a much more extensive and deeper study into this field.
Areas of Expertise:
Administration and Leadership (K-12 Schools)
Curriculum and Instruction
Educational Technology
International and Comparative Education
K-12 Administration
Secondary Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Teaching English as a Second Language
Brittany M. Brewer
Contact: brewerb7@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://www.brittanybrewer.com/
Research Focus: Brittany (she/her) is a [theatre] artist, writer, educator, and doctoral student in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Her research interests include embodied joy and possibilities(!), arts-based research, queer theory, feedback practices, young adult narratives, and collaborative learning. Her most recent endeavors at the intersection of her artist-researcher-teacher self include no small parts podcast and Whole HeART Teaching, both of which you can learn more about on her website!
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Secondary Education
Arts-based Research
Playwriting
Arts Integration
Trauma-informed Teaching
Nonprofit Leadership
Kyle L. Chong
Contact: chongkyl@msu.edu
Academic Profile: [Twitter] @KyleLChong, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kyle-Chong-3
Research Focus: Kyle L. Chong (張陳創庭) (he.him.his) is a Doctoral Student in the Curriculum, Instruction & Teacher Education (CITE) program at Michigan State University whose research focuses on [Asian]CR[I]T, social studies education, critiques of patriotic and nationalist education, and curriculum theory. Kyle currently is an instructor in the teacher preparation program and teaches courses on the social foundations of education, and reading and responding to children’s literature. His publications focus on theories of happiness/joy in teaching and curriculum, Asian American teachers, critiques of Chinese National education policy, and game-based learning. Kyle earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Theory from the University of Puget Sound and was a 2018 Pacific Rim Asia Scholar, and Robert S. Trimble Distinguished Asia Scholar Designation from the University of Puget Sound. He currently serves as a Co-Editor of the Iowa Journal for the Social Studies, on the MSU University Committee on the Curriculum, and as an inaugural Asian Pacific American Studies Graduate Fellow. Kyle’s TEDx “[Anti-]Racism at Sunset” aired 21 April 2021.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Social Foundations of Education
Social Studies and History Education
Maggie Demarse
Contact: demarsem@msu.edu
Research Focus: Maggie Demarse is a Ph.D Student in the CITE program at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning (PBL), specifically in elementary science and social studies education. She is curious to learn more about the relationship between student achievement and student voice & choice in PBL projects, especially in regards to marginalized students. Currently, she teaches undergraduate courses in social studies methods. Prior to working with pre-service teachers, she was an elementary and middle school science and ELA teacher in Dayton, Ohio.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Elementary Education
Science Education
Social Studies and History Education
Betul Demiray Sandiraz
Contact: demirayb@msu.edu
Research Focus: I am a Fulbright grantee from Turkey. My research interests broadly focus on the ways of ensuring equity in early childhood education for all, especially children living in poverty. I am interested in civic engagement at young ages and how children develop civic identities that lead to active involvement in society for justice and equity. I am also curious about family literacy initiatives where researchers, families, and children become co-creators of knowledge. I think about how these initiatives can become sites for civic engagement in communities.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Early Childhood Education
Family, Community, and Schools
International and Comparative Education
Darshana Devarajan
Contact: darshana@msu.edu
Research Focus: I am interested in Arts Based Education Research, using creative writing and poetry as methods. I love philosophy, art, and thinking about language.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Educational Policy
Elementary Education
International and Comparative Education
Teaching English as a Second Language
Arts Education
Kristin Doherty
Contact: giorgiok@msu.edu
Academic Profile:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kristin-Doherty-2
Research Focus:Kristin Doherty’s research focus is on preparing preservice and in-service teachers to facilitate mathematics discussions, with implications for equity and justice. Her research is informed by her experience as a mathematics teacher at the elementary and middle school levels. Her research strives to improve mathematics learning experiences of students, particularly children of marginalized backgrounds. Ultimately, her goal is for mathematics learning to incorporate more student voice, be culturally responsive, and focus on conceptual understanding over memorizing steps to get right answers. After finishing her PhD, Kristin Doherty hopes to be a professor in teacher education at a R1 university.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Elementary Education
Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Mathematics Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Suha Gangopadhyay
Contact: gangopa5@msu.edu
Research Focus: I am interested in studying the experiences of remote teachers in the virtual learning space, their digital literacy, and how technology can be used to humanize the interactions between instructors and learners. I am also interested in understanding the role of gender roles, and how this impacts the teacher persona adopted by instructors in their virtual classrooms. This intersection becomes even more compelling to study when placed in the context of international education, given how we are moving closer to building virtual learning spaces that cut across national borders and cultural specifics.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Educational Technology
International and Comparative Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Rebekah R. Gordon
Contact: gordo181@msu.edu
Academic Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebekah-r-gordon-539b35104/
Research Focus: Rebekah Gordon’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the experiences and practices of transnational language teachers as they work across linguistic, cultural, and political systems. As a former U.S. Department of State English Language Fellow, she is particularly interested in exploring how soft power and cultural diplomacy are embodied in and outside of the classroom. Her current work leverages arts-based research methods and feminist epistemologies to reimagine the patriarchal practices that still dominate public diplomacy education initiatives.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
International and Comparative Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Teaching English as a Second Language
Kara Haas
Contact: karahaas@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://karahaas.org/
Research Focus: I’m broadly interested in learning communities and communities of practice – particularly those that are interdisciplinary and include professionals from multiple career stages. I work within science education in formal and informal contexts on projects that bring together scientists, informal and formal educators who serve diverse student populations. Throughout these projects, I’m curious about using nearby nature exploration and community-focused science as tools for student and teacher engagement. I’m also curious to look at the larger STEM ecosystem – the network of possibility for STEM learning throughout a community, unpacking how formal/informal partnerships form and how families, students and teachers participate.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Science Education
Outdoor and environmental education
Reyila Hadeer
Contact: hadeerre@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://slowphoto.weebly.com/
Research Focus: Reyila Hadeer has worked with youth, adult learners, and teachers in both formal and informal educational settings in China and the U.S. During her doctoral study, she has been conducting experiential works focusing on the curriculum situated at the counterpoint of school and life from global and non-western Indigenous perspectives. She is committed to expanding human creativity in (re)creating a more inclusive global community beyond categories and labels. She believes aesthetic revolution is the foundation of social revolution. Her current research draws on arts-based methods to explore a decolonial notion curriculum and how it relates to curriculum reform.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
International and Comparative Education
Social Foundations of Education
Teaching English as a Second Language
Arts Integration
Arts-based Research
Lisa Hawley
Contact: hawleyL2@msu.edu
Research Focus: Lisa Hawley’s research focuses on elementary mathematics teaching practices. Many elementary teachers feel anxious about teaching mathematics, and this often causes them to reproduce more traditional mathematics practices. Lisa hopes to support elementary teachers to use more inquiry-based and conceptually-oriented mathematics teaching practices by helping them draw on their teaching strengths in other subject areas to teach mathematics. Her current research focuses on the ways that prospective elementary teachers perceive similarities and differences in teaching literacy and teaching mathematics.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
Mathematics Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Lindsey Allene Hall
Contact: halllin7@msu.edu
Academic Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-allene-hall
Research Focus: My research interests include the languages and multimodal literacies of emergent bi/multilingual transnational children and families in the United States and in East Africa, alongside how curriculum, instruction, and teacher education can cultivate learner/family/teacher identities, pedagogies, and practices that are linguistically and culturally sustaining in partnership with communities.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
Family, Community, and Schools
International and Comparative Education
Literacy Education
Teaching English as a Second Language
Brent Jackson
Contact: bjackson@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://brentjackson.us/
Research Focus: Brent Jackson (They/Them/He/Him) is a former middle school mathematics teacher. As a researcher, Brent studies teacher learning in the context of action research and lesson studies. Brent is particularly interested in teacher learning related to issues of equity and social justice and complex instruction. Brent draws on a broad array of qualitative research methods. Brent’s current projects include an NCTM Classroom Research Grant to support middle school teachers’ to use complex instruction, the California Action Network for Mathematics Excellence and Equity which supports a statewide lesson study network, and disrupting gender ideologies throughout mathematics education.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Mathematics Education
Social Foundations of Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Gender & Queer Theories
Will Langford
Contact: langfo17@msu.edu
Academic Profile: www.WillThePoet.com
Research Focus: Langford’s research focuses on community engagement through the arts. He has lead programming in Detroit, across the nation, and in East Africa as a Fulbright ETA.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
International and Comparative Education
Literacy Education
Motivation
Secondary Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Urban Education
Lee Melvin Peralta
Contact:peralt11@msu.edu
Research Focus: Lee Melvin Peralta’s research interests include examining the historical, sociopolitical, and aesthetic dimensions of mathematics and data science education. His research is informed by his experience teaching middle school mathematics in NYC and his interests in science and technology studies, speculative design, and decolonial studies. He is currently involved in a youth participatory action research project with Dr. Joanne Marciano and a research project with Dr. Higinio Dominguez on animating the study of mathematical concepts.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Mathematics Education
Secondary Education
T.J. Mesyn
Contact: wardtara@msu.edu
Academic Profile: americanhurt.com
Research Focus: Finding synergy in the Information & Media and Curriculum, Instruction, & Teacher Education Ph.D. programs at Michigan State University grants doctoral student T.J. (Tara) Mesyn the opportunity to meld her passions into one dual degree. Her work strives to bridge the gap between creative and academic work, as well as the worlds between visual communication, visual literacy and educational research and practice. Her international, award-winning, multimedia project “American Hurt: Vietnam Veteran Portraits & Perspectives” became a springboard for her recent research thread on US History textbooks and visual literacy
Areas of Expertise:
Social Studies and History Education
Visual Literacy
Visual Communication
Creative Scholarship
Megan O’Donovan
Contact:odonova4@msu.edu
Research Focus: My research interests are in science curriculum and assessment. I am specifically interested in students’ understanding and use of the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), and how curricula and assessments can be designed to support this understanding. In other words, how can we help students participate in “doing science” authentically, and how do we know when they are doing so? My goal is to help teachers better support their students in understanding how scientific knowledge is constructed, and in seeing themselves as constructors of that knowledge.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Science Education
Secondary Education
Sheila Orr
Contact:smorr11@msu.edu
Research Focus: Sheila Orr’s research interests are informed by her years as a secondary mathematics teacher. She is interested in how mathematics teachers create humanizing spaces in their classrooms. Additionally, she is interested in how prospective teachers balance the need for humanizing spaces and pedagogies with the demands on content knowledge and pedagogical practices they learn in teacher preparation programs. Through her work, Sheila hopes to work with teachers to create spaces in their classrooms for every student to thrive.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Mathematics Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Urban Education
Jasmin Patrón-Vargas
Contact: vargasj7@msu.edu
Research Focus: Jasmin is a dual Ph.D. candidate in Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education and Chicano/Latino Studies at Michigan State University. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Latin@ Studies and Gender and Women Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her MEd from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Educational Policy Studies. Her interdisciplinary research interests include identity development, race and ethnicity, and ethnic studies education with an emphasis on Chicanx history. Her current research examines the curriculum development and implementation of recent K-12 ethnic studies policies. Through her research, Jasmin aims to contribute to the urgency to support the K-12 ethnic studies movement.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Elementary Education
Social Studies and History Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Urban Education
Allison Phillippe
Contact: phill911@msu.edu
Research Focus: Allison is a former elementary teacher from Michigan and a second year Ph.D. student in the CITE program. Her area of interest lies in the relationship between literacy and social-emotional learning (SEL). This is based on the idea that when students work on character development and perspective-taking, they can use their own emotions and feelings to better connect to the character and vice versa. More specifically, she is interested in investigating how elementary teacher’s integration of SEL into their current literacy instruction (interactive read alouds with children’s literature and text-based discussions) can meet the needs of their students academically and emotionally.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Elementary Education
Literacy Education
Laxmi Prasad Ojha
Contact: ojhalaxm@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://michiganstate.academia.edu/LaxmiPrasadOjha
Research Focus: Laxmi Prasad Ojha is interested in the issues of multilingualism, language ideologies, literacy education, transnationalism, and teacher education. He draws on sociocultural and critical approaches to language and literacy education to make sense of how social and educational settings impact learners’ language and literacy development. Adopting a community-engaged approach, he works with immigrant communities and teachers to understand how children and youths from transnational immigrant families negotiate their linguistic and cultural identities across multiple contexts. Through his scholarship and activism, Laxmi advocates for equitable learning opportunities for linguistically and culturally minoritized communities.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Early Childhood Education
Family, Community, and Schools
Literacy Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy,
Teaching English as a Second Language
Sol Rheem
Contact: rheemchr@msu.edu
Research Focus: As an immigrant student, immigrant teacher, and teacher researcher, I am foremost interested in the complex identities of multilingual, multicultural youth and their teachers. I am interested in how language mediates one’s responses to the various -isms, institutions, and ideologies in our social contexts. I want to share what young people know about learning with the teachers who are tasked with designing learning in classrooms. This is a community endeavor that is based on the Freirian notion that everybody has knowledge of the world that they bring to any learning experience. I seek to embody this spirit as I explore my questions about and with immigrant youth and their teachers.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Diverse Learners and Educational Equity
Teaching English as a Second Language
Urban Education
Christie Morrison Thomas
Contact: morris73@msu.edu
Research Focus: Christie Morrison Thomas’ work supports classroom science teachers in engaging students in phenomena-centered experiences while scaffolding and assessing three-dimensional performances that equitably build students’ science identities. Her ongoing research and development work with MSU’s Carbon TIME project (https://carbontime.create4stem.msu.edu/) includes two strands: 1) studying classrooms to identify aspects of classroom discourse that align with higher (and lower) three-dimensional student learning gains; and 2) studying interviews to identify teachers’ perceptions and commitments affecting instruction. This research extends into the study of teachers’ professional communities, exploring how districts and local teachers’ unions support the kinds of professional discourses sustaining three-dimensional science classroom instruction
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Science Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy
Teachers’ Unions
Grace Tukurah
Contact: tukurahg@msu.edu
Academic Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-tukurah-3717071b0/
Research Focus: The direction of my research is studying the effect of outside influences such as international aid on science education in Nigeria and sub – Saharan Africa and how science can be taught in just, equitable and culturally relevant ways.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum and Instruction
Educational Policy
International and Comparative Education
Science Education
Secondary Education
Renée Wilmot
Contact:wilmotre@msu.edu
Research Focus: Renée Wilmot is a fourth year doctoral student studying the historical legacy of Black women as educators and activists in the Black community and Black girls’ practices of resistance and thriving within schooling structures. She is also a former secondary ELA teacher. Renee’s teaching seeks to forefront Afrocentric traditions and liberatory pedagogies.
Areas of Expertise:
Social Foundations of Education
Urban Education
Race & Equity in Education
Al Wood
Contact: woodale8@msu.edu
Research Focus: Prior to joining MSU, I taught most content areas of middle and high school social studies for nine years in rural Northern Arizona, including three years on the Navajo Nation. My research goals are driven by my rural teaching experiences and aim to increase awareness of the unique challenges faced by social studies teachers in rural communities. I am particularly interested in exploring how rural and Indigenous teachers and students experience social studies and using those findings to explore how their voices can be represented and amplified in the teaching and learning of history, politics, economics, social justice, and critical perspectives.
Areas of Expertise:
Critical Studies in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Secondary Education
Social Studies and History Education
Teacher Education, Learning, and Policy