Experts: Education

Steacy’s research interests include early reading development, early predictors of reading achievement and interventions for students who have or are at-risk for reading disabilities.

Motoko Akiba is an expert on teacher policy and reform, including teacher professional development, teacher evaluation, and teacher compensation. She conducts policy and leadership research on the state and school district supports associated with improvement of the teaching profession in the U.S. as well as other countries.

Almond is an expert on educational psychology, with an emphasis on measurement and statistics, as well as teacher qualifications and school outcomes with particular focus on teacher knowledge and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Baghurst is a professor in the College of Education and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Athletic Coaching (FSU COACH). He is an expert in coaching education, coach development, ethics in sport, and international athletes and international sports.

Dr. Adrienne Barnes-Story is a Literacy and Pedagogy Specialist with the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University. She has more than 20 years of experience in both formal and non-formal education environments, education research in traditional American schools, and international education and development.

Beatty is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department in the College of Education. He teaches courses in the undergraduate leadership certificate and conducts research with the Leadership and Learning Research Center.

His research foci includes exploring the intersections of gender and race in leadership education, leadership development of students of color on historically white college campuses and global leadership education for undergraduate students. His recent publications center on topics that include: supporting undergraduate Black women through Sister Circles, gains in leadership capacity for high achieving Black men leaders and supporting undergraduate men in leadership education through liberatory pedagogy.

Buning is an expert on sport coaching, athlete experiences, and mental performance and sport psychology for coaches, athletes and game officials. She is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC), is listed in the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) Mental Performance Directory, is a trained Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement instructor, and is accredited to issue the DISC Profile and Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Styles (TAIS) assessments.

Dennen researches online learning, online communities, knowledge networks and social media use in K-12 education. Within these areas, she focuses on issues such as learning activity design, identity, privacy, and ethical technology use.

Driscoll is Dean Emerita of the FSU College of Education and the Leslie J. Briggs Professor of Educational Research. Her research focuses on learning systems and instruction.

Ebener is Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Ebener’s research focuses on psychological and social factors that influence an individual’s coping and adaptation to disability and chronic illness, as well as recovery from substance use disorders. Her current research examines positive psychology constructs of humor, spirituality and optimism as coping mechanisms in recovery and adaptation.

Foorman is an expert in reading, assessment and language development. She is director emeritus of the Florida Center for Reading Research and director of the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast at Florida State University.

Ganley is an expert in math anxiety and understanding the social, cognitive, and affective factors related to math learning and achievement, with a specific interest in individual differences related to gender and income level. She has investigated factors such as teacher biases, stereotype threat, anxiety, working memory, and spatial skills as potential malleable factors that may be related to gender and income-level differences in mathematics achievement.

Guthrie is an expert on leadership in higher education, including the teaching and learning of leadership, culturally relevant leadership learning, and professional development for higher education administrators.

Hanline is an expert on working with special needs students, particularly young children.

Hiver is an expert on second and foreign language acquisition and language pedagogy. His research explores how classroom instruction links to learners’ investment, expenditure of effort, participation and engagement with languages.

Hu is an expert on higher education finance, Florida’s Bright Futures program and college access.

Iatarola is an expert on high school reform, urban schools, small high schools and funding.

Jaber researches students’ engagement and emotions in learning science, both in face-to-face and in online settings. She also examines ways to support pre-service and in-service teachers in their efforts to promote students’ engagement through responsive teaching.

James is an expert on sport marketing, global sports, sponsorship, branding and sport fans.

Dr. Jenkins is the Michael and Jean Shahnasarian Endowed Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. She received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from Northern Illinois University.  She is a Licensed Psychologist in the State of Florida and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist.

Jeong is an associate professor in the College of Education’s Instructional Systems & Learning Technologies program in the Department of Educational Psychology & Learning Systems. He is an expert on online discourse, computer supported collaborative argumentation and learning analytics.

Dr. Kofler is the director and founder of the Children’s Learning Clinic. His research focuses on identifying strengths and building capabilities in children with ADHD. His primary research goals are to identify ways to improve ADHD behavioral treatment and also develop ADHD-centric, game-based neurocognitive training. This research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the FSU Psychology Department.

Dr. Kofler is a licensed clinical psychologist in Florida and Virginia. He has published more than 50 scientific articles and book chapters on topics related to childhood ADHD, and he serves on the editorial boards of Child Neuropsychology and the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. He is a recipient of the Young Scientist Research Award from the national ADHD group CHADD.

Perez-Felkner’s research uses developmental and sociological perspectives to the mechanisms that shape entry into and persistence with respect to college and career pathways, from secondary school through the workforce. She especially focuses on post-secondary access and success in scientific and technological career fields.

Razzouk, the director of the Learning Systems Institute, is an expert in the design and development of technologies and innovations for teaching and learning. In addition, he is an expert in curriculum development, STEM education,  teacher professional development and large-scale project management. As the Florida Center for Research in STEM director, he collaborates with multi-disciplinary teams of content and technology experts, instructional designers, STEM teachers and researchers to improve and support high-quality education in Florida and worldwide.

Root is an expert in special education, with an emphasis on evidence-based practices for students with autism and intellectual disability and use of applied-behavior analysis in education settings.

Rutledge is an expert in school reform policy effects, educator response to school reform policies, principal and teacher work in context of school reform, teacher quality policy implications and parental influence on school reform.

Robert C. Schoen, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of LSI’s Florida Center for Research in STEM (FCR–STEM) and an associate professor of mathematics education in the School of Teacher Education. Through his research, he seeks answers to the question, “How can we improve mathematics teaching and learning for all students?” In search of answers, he has designed and directed more than one-dozen large-scale, randomized-controlled trials of educational interventions designed to improve teaching and learning in mathematics.

Staudt Willet is an expert on networked learning in online communities. In particular, he studies how social media platforms both benefit and complicate professional transitions, such as new teachers’ induction from preparation programs into professional practice.

Swanbrow Becker’s research focuses on suicide prevention, stress, coping, resilience, and help-seeking among college students.

Amy S. Thompson, Ph.D. (Ph.D. Michigan State University), is the Mack and Effie Campbell Distinguished Professor and Director of the School of Teacher Education in the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at Florida State University. Her teaching experience includes a range of theoretical and methodological courses in Applied Linguistics. Regarding research, her primary research foci involve Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition and the interaction of these IDs and multilingualism, language learning in Anglophone contexts, and a variety of other variables involved in language learning, teaching, and leadership in academia.

Vyortkina directs the College of Education’s Office of Information and Instructional Technologies (OIIT), where she encourages faculty and students to use e-learning strategies and technologies to enhance learning, teaching, assessment and research. As part of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) task force, she is involved in developing competencies for educators working in blended and online learning and teaching environments.

Wofford is an expert on graduate education and graduate student development, STEM higher education, and mentoring relationships in higher education. She conducts research that examines structures of inequity across students’ pathways to and through graduate-level degrees. Dr. Wofford is also a facilitator for the Equity in Graduate Education consortium (housed at the University of Southern California).