NEPC Topic Experts on Classroom Teaching and Learning

Elena Aydarova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Aydarova was a faculty member at Auburn University for six years prior to joining UW. Her interdisciplinary scholarship lies at the intersections of comparative and international education, educational policy, and anthropology. She examines educational policies and their implications for equity, diversity, and social justice through the lens of theater. Rooted in critical theories, her research focuses on intermediary organizations’ advocacy and the ensuing technocratic reforms. She also explores educators’ policy advocacy as they work towards more equitable and just education for all. She is a recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship, American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, the Concha Delgado Gaitan Presidential Fellowship from the Council of Anthropology and Education, a Global Teacher Education Fellowship from the Longview Foundation, as well as a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship. She has authored over 30 publications, including the award-winning book Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater: Russian Policy Dramas (2019, with SUNY Press).

Email Elena Aydarova at: aydarova@wisc.edu

Carol Corbett Burris became Executive Director of the Network for Public Education Foundation in August 2015, after serving as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in NY since 2000.  Prior to becoming a principal, she was a teacher at both the middle and high school level.  She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her dissertation, which studied her district’s detracking reform in math, received the 2003 National Association of Secondary Schools’ Principals Middle Level Dissertation of the Year Award.  In 2010, she was named Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, she was named SAANYS New York State High School Principal of the Year.  Dr. Burris co-authored Detracking for Excellence and Equity (2008) and Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness (2012), and authored On the Same Track: How Schools Can Join the 21st Century Struggle against Re-segregation (2014). Her articles have appeared in Educational Leadership, Kappan, American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Theory into Practice, School Administrator, American School Board Journal and Education Week. She regularly expresses her concerns about the misuse and unintended consequences of high-stakes testing in the Washington Post, The Answer Sheet blog.

E-mail Carol Burris at: burriscarol@gmail.com

Elizabeth Dutro is professor and chair of Literacy Studies in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in the area of literacy studies. Her research investigates the intersections of literacy, identity, and children and youth’s opportunities for positive, sustained, relationships with schooling. A primary strand of her work analyzes the presence and consequences of out-of-school life experiences and discourses of race, class, gender in students’ encounters with literacy curriculum, instruction, and high-stakes accountability policy. Elizabeth was a recipient of the Promising Researcher Award and Alan C. Purves Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Email Elizabeth Dutro at: Elizabeth.Dutro@colorado.edu

Margaret Eisenhart is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds the Bob and Judy Charles Endowed Chair of Education. Her research focuses on the application of anthropological concepts and methods to educational settings. In particular, Dr. Eisenhart has studied culture, gender relations, and women’s experiences in education, as well as women in science and technology. During the past five years, she has been directing outreach programs and research studies related to opportunities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among high school students. She is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the American Educational Research Association. In 2004 she was elected to the National Academy of Education and currently serves on the Academy’s Board of Directors.

Email Margaret Eisenhart at: margaret.eisenhart@colorado.edu

Dr. Mileidis Gort is Associate Dean of Students and Professor of Bilingual Education and Biliteracy at CU Boulder. She brings an interdisciplinary orientation to her research and teaching. Her primary research efforts focus on emergent bilingualism and biliteracy in early childhood, and to bring that knowledge to pre K-12 teacher education and practice in order to create culturally- and linguistically-responsive learning contexts for emergent bilingual learners. Her scholarship converges at two interrelated lines of research: (a) the language and literacy processes of young, Spanish-English emergent bilingual children, and (b) instructional practices and educational policies that support the dual language, biliteracy, and academic development of emergent bilingual children.

Email Mileidis Gort at: mileidis.gort@colorado.edu

Pat Hinchey is Professor Emerita of Education at Penn State. She is experienced in a wide variety of teaching situations and in conducting professional development for both in-service teachers and her faculty colleagues. Her research interests center on issues of equity and the undermining of education for democracy. Having written extensively on the translation of critical theory to classroom practice, more recently she has turned her attention to teacher assessment and proposals for restructuring the teaching profession.  Pat's most recent book, Getting to Where We Meant to Be: Working Toward the Educational World We Imagine/d, analyzes the common assumptions related to the various futures imagined for K-12 education. 

Email Patricia H. Hinchey at: pxh12@psu.edu

Linda Molner Kelley, co-director of the Schools of Opportunity project and co-editor of the book Schools of Opportunity: 10 Research-Based Models of Equity in Action, is the former Assistant Dean of Teacher Education and Partnerships and former Director for Outreach and Engagement at the University of Colorado Boulder. In those and other roles, she has developed numerous K-16 and community programs designed to strengthen learning opportunities for students and teachers in diverse settings. A former high school teacher and administrator in a Denver school district, Linda is a champion of high-quality induction programs for novice teachers, research-based professional development opportunities for practicing teachers, and the creation of mutually beneficial partnerships among K-12 schools, higher education and local communities.

Email Linda Molner Kelley at: Linda.Molner@colorado.edu

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro (https://www.kevinkumashiro.com) is the founding chair of the national network, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE). He is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate. Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the Schools of Education at the University of San Francisco and Hofstra University, and is the award-winning author or editor of 10 books, including Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice, and most recently, Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. His recent awards include the 2016 Social Justice in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Jaekyung Lee, PhD, is a UB Distinguished Professor and former dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. A fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and a Co-PI of the National Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI (CELaRAI), Lee is an internationally recognized leader in educational policy evaluation with focus on accountability and equity issues. He has a PhD in education from the University of Chicago. Lee is currently a Richard P. Nathan Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute of Government. He was also a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and a fellow of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the recipient of 2007 AERA Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award and 2015 Western New York Educational Service Council Robert W. Heller Award. Lee is the author of The Anatomy of Achievement Gaps: Why and How American Education is Losing (But Can Still Win) the War on Underachievement (Oxford University Press).

Email Jaekyung Lee at: jl224@buffalo.edu

H. Richard Milner IV (also known as Rich) is Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. His research, teaching, and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education. Professor Milner’s research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools. Professor Milner is President of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published seven books. His most recent are: Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2010 and 2020, Second Edition), Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools and classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and These kids are out of control: Why we must reimagine classroom management for equity (Corwin Press, 2018).   

Email Rich Milner at: rich.milner@vanderbilt.edu

Dr. Elizabeth Birr Moje is the George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She is also a faculty associate in the Institute for Social Research and in the Latino/a Studies program. Moje began her career teaching history, biology, and drama at high schools in Colorado and Michigan. In her current research and community engagement work, Moje uses an array of methods to study and support young people’s literacy learning in Detroit, Michigan. She is particularly interested in the intersections between disciplinary literacies of school and the literacy practices of youth outside of school studies how youth draw from home, community, ethnic, popular, and school cultures to make cultures and to enact identities. In related work focused on teacher learning, Moje developed and co-directs Teaching and Learning the Disciplines through Clinical Practice Rounds, with colleagues Robert Bain and Emily Rainey. The Rounds Project advances discipline-based literacy teacher education and was awarded the provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize at the University of Michigan in 2010. Moje is a member of the National Academy of Education and serves as AERA vice president for Division G (research on the social contexts of education).

Email Elizabeth Moje at: moje@umich.edu

T. Philip Nichols is an associate professor of literacy education at Baylor University. His research examines how digital technologies remake the conditions of learning, instruction, and leadership in K-12 schools and the implications for educational equity. He is the author of Building the Innovation School: Infrastructures for Equity in Today’s Classrooms (Teachers College Press, 2022) and co-editor of Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, Possibilities (Routledge, 2025).

Email Phil Nichols at: Phil_Nichols@baylor.edu

Susan Ohanian, a long-time public school teacher, is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Atlantic, Parents, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, Language Arts, and American School Board Journal. In 2003, Ohanian received The National Council of Teachers of English's "NCTE Orwell Award" for her outstanding contribution, via her now-defunct website, to the critical analysis of public discourse.

Email Susan Ohanian at: susano@gmavt.net

William R. Penuel is a Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on teacher learning and organizational processes that shape the implementation of educational policies, school curricula, and after-school programs. His research has appeared in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, the American Journal of Evaluation, Science Education, and the Journal of the Learning Sciences. He is on the editorial board for Teachers College Record, American Journal of Evaluation, and Cognition and Instruction. Prior to joining the faculty at CU Boulder, Penuel was Director of Evaluation Research at the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International for 13 years.

Email William R. Penuel at: william.penuel@colorado.edu

Thomas M. Philip is a Professor and Faculty Director of Teacher Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Philip’s research focuses on how teachers make sense of power and hierarchy in classrooms, schools, and society. He is interested in how teachers act on their sense of agency as they navigate and ultimately transform classrooms and institutions toward more equitable, just, and democratic practices and outcomes. His most recent scholarship explores the possibilities and tensions that emerge with the use of artificial intelligence and digital learning technologies in the classroom, particularly discourses about the promises of these tools with respect to the significance or dispensability of teacher pedagogy.

Email Thomas M. Philip at: tmp@berkeley.edu

Joe Polman is a Professor in Learning Sciences and Science Education, as well as Associate Dean for Research, in the School of Education at University of Colorado Boulder. He designs and studies project-based learning environments for youth in schools and community programs. He focuses on learning and identity development connected to practices of science, literacy and journalism, with a particular focus on fostering more engaged democratic participation. He is an Executive Editor of Cognition and Instruction, serves on the editorial board of Journal of the Learning Sciences, and is on the board of the International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Email Joe Polman at: joseph.polman@colorado.edu

Emilie Mitescu Reagan is an associate professor of education in the Claremont Graduate University School of Educational Studies. Her research focuses on social-justice oriented teacher education policy and practice, using primarily quantitative and mixed methods research.

Email Emilie Reagan at: emilie.reagan@cgu.edu

Beth C. Rubin, Ph.D. is professor of education at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. In her work, she uses a critical, sociocultural approach to investigate how young people develop, both as learners and as citizens, amid the interwoven contexts of classroom, school, and community, with particular attention to the ways that these settings are shaped by historical and structural inequalities. Her work appears in a variety of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, the Harvard Educational Review, Curriculum Inquiry, Equity and Excellence in Education, the Urban Review, and others. Her most recent book is Making Citizens: Transforming Civic Learning for Diverse Social Studies Classrooms (Routledge, 2012).

Email Beth Rubin at: beth.rubin@gse.rutgers.edu

Doris A. Santoro is a professor at Bowdoin College where she serves as chair of the Education Department. She teaches courses in educational studies and teacher education. Santoro serves as Senior Associate Editor for the American Journal of Education. She is the author of Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay (Harvard Education Press, 2018) and the co-editor of Principled Resistance: How Teachers Resolve Ethical Dilemmas (2018). 

Email Doris Santoro at: dsantoro@bowdoin.edu

Kathy Schultz is Professor of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education and with the Renée Crown Wellness Institute. She was Dean of the School of Education from 2017-2023 following her appointment as Dean of the School of Education at Mills College in Oakland, California from 2010-2016. She served as professor and director of the teacher education program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997-2010. During that time, she was the faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project and served on the Empowerment Board (School Board) of the Chester Upland School District. 

Her scholarly work has focused on the research, development, and dissemination of practices that support new and veteran teachers working with marginalized populations in high poverty areas. Her two books, Listening: A framework for teaching across differences and Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices address these issues. Her most recent book, Distrust and educational change: Overcoming barriers to just and lasting reform, about the role of distrust in educational reform, draws on her work in Oakland, as a school board member in Chester, PA, and leader of professional development in international settings. One of her current projects addresses dignity, teachers, and teaching.

Email Katherine Schultz at: Katherine.Schultz@colorado.edu

Lorrie Shepard is Distinguished Professor and Dean Emerita in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on psychometrics and the use and misuse of tests in educational settings. In addition to technical work on validity theory, standard setting, and statistical models for detecting test bias, her studies evaluating test use have addressed the identification of learning disabilities, readiness screening for kindergarten, grade retention, teacher testing, and effects of high-stakes accountability testing on teaching and learning. Her current work focuses on curriculum-embedded format assessment practices. She served as President of the American Educational Research Association, the National Council on Measurement in Education, and the National Academy of Education.

Email Lorrie Shepard at: lorrie.shepard@colorado.edu

Jamy Stillman is an Associate Professor of Education in the division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research explores the factors that shape teachers’ capacities to deliver equity-oriented, responsive instruction in high-poverty schools serving minoritized youth, especially Spanish-English bilingual students. Using qualitative methods, Jamy focuses primarily on two factors—education policy (e.g. high-stakes accountability policies and standards-based reform) and features of university teacher education—to generate understandings about pre-service and practicing teachers’ learning and work across contexts, and the implications of this work and learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students’ opportunities to learn. Jamy is also becoming increasingly interested in questions surrounding the preparation of urban teacher educators.

Email Jamy Stillman at: Jamy.Stillman@colorado.edu

P. L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville SC), taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He is a former column editor for English Journal (National Council of Teachers of English), current series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres (Brill), and author of Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination: Essays Exploring What ‘Teaching Writing’ Means (IAP, 2019) and How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care (IAP, in press). NCTE named Thomas the 2013 George Orwell Award winner. He co-edited the award-winning (Divergent Book Award for Excellence in 21^st Century Literacies Research) volume Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America (Brill, 2018). Follow his work @plthomasEdD and the becoming radical (http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/).

Email P.L. Thomas at: paul.thomas@furman.edu

Jennie Whitcomb is the principal of Sacred Heart Preparatory, a Catholic, independent high school in Northern California. Prior to joining Sacred Heart in 2015, she was the Associate Dean of Teacher Education at CU Boulder (2002-2015) and Director of Teacher Education at the University of Denver (1997-2002). Committed to quality teaching and teacher education, her scholarship has focused on teacher learning and teacher education policy and program design. From 2005-2009 she co-edited the Journal of Teacher Education, and in 2014 she was elected to the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education’s Board. Her turn from university teacher preparation to the daily life of a high school affords her opportunities to live her commitments to quality teaching and to fostering a vibrant, affirming school community focused on delivering powerful learning experiences that guide students to find their purpose and to serve their community.

Email Jennie Whitcomb at: jennie.whitcomb@outlook.com