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.

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.

Becker 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).

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.

Clark is an expert in mathematical knowledge for teaching, use of history of mathematics in teaching, history of mathematics, professional development of teachers, and qualitative research methodology.

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.

Hardin’s areas of interests include culturally responsive teaching, academic engagement for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, and teacher preparation for students with disabilities.

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.

Jakubowski is interested in both general teacher education and development and the infusion of technology into mathematics teaching and learning, and ways to ensure mathematics equity. She taught mathematics and computer science for four years at the middle grades level and has also taught in summer programs for high school students. Her research interests include teacher education learning and development, policy issues in teacher education, and equity.

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

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.

Ke’s research focuses on digital game-based learning, inclusive design of computer supported collaborative learning, mixed-reality integrated immersive learning and adaptive e-learning.

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.

Krach’s research focuses on improving assessment and intervention practices in the field of social-emotional/behavioral skills with a through the use of emerging technologies. Krach is licensed as a psychologist in the states of Florida, Nevada and Alabama and holds the credential of Nationally Certified School Psychologist.

Marty’s work focuses on improving pre-primary and primary education in low and middle-income countries, with expertise in early childhood education and development, literacy instruction, and education research. She has managed large-scale longitudinal research projects and created assessments for English-minority-speaking preschool children. Her work in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean aims to strengthen the instructional and research capacity of higher education institutions’ teacher training programs to build a cadre of teachers competent to implement evidence-based literacy instructional practices.

Paek’s research centers on item response modeling, test score equating, and psychometric issues in large scale assessment.

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.

Pfeiffer’s areas of research focus on the identification and development of gifted and talented students, the unique social and emotional needs of high ability children and youth, and the effective parenting to raise well-adjusted and successful children and youth.

Ramos-Mattoussi’s areas of expertise are related to international education and development; gender, nonformal adult education; visual sociology qualitative research methods (gender, health, child labor, community-based initiatives, etc.); and literacy. She’s worked in over 25 countries in the last 30 years managing international development projects in the education sector and is fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.c

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.

Reiser is an expert on instructional design and effective college teaching strategies.

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.

Shute is an expert on games, learning, and assessment.

Southerland’s research focuses on barriers and pathways to change in educational practice, science teacher learning, effective practices to support teacher and student learning, and understanding the role culture and beliefs in science teaching and learning.

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.

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).