A Florida State University professor is being honored by the most prestigious psychological organization in the country. 

Professor of Educational Psychology Alysia Roehrig has been named a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA). With more than 133,000 members, the APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States.

Fellow status is granted only to members whose work has had an impact on the field of psychology beyond the local, state or regional level. Roehrig is the eighth APA fellow from FSU.  

“As a first generation college student, who began at FSU 20 years ago as an assistant professor, this is such a huge honor to be recognized by my peers for my professional contributions at the national level,” said Roehrig, who joined the faculty at Florida State University in 2003 after earning both her Ph.D. and master’s in Developmental Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She is also a faculty member in the Learning and Cognition Program and chair of the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems.   

Roehrig’s research focuses on issues related to effective teaching, particularly exploring the successes of students labeled at risk for school failure. She primarily focuses on the literacy learning and motivation of students.   

She is the co-principal investigator and co-director of PURPOSE: Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education. PURPOSE aims to increase the diversity of those with doctorates in education through a yearlong fellowship. Through PURPOSE, Roehrig and her colleagues at FSU and FAMU have helped launch over 70 young scholars whose research identities are reinforced by their social identities.    

As a scholar activist, Roehrig says she believes that research serves little purpose if it is not accessible to those who might use it to make education more effective and equitable.   

“My goal is to make a real-world impact on issues of diversity, equity and social justice in the field of educational psychology by supporting the next generations of more and more diverse scholars,” she said. “Their impactful educational pursuits, including entering doctoral programs to one day become mentors themselves, will make educational systems more representative and increase momentum to change systems of oppression and widen the scope and impact of research.”  

Roehrig is co-author of the textbook Educational Psychology, one of the most widely adopted educational psychology textbooks in the field.  

Roehrig also helped bring the first Freedom Schools to Tallahassee and serves as the co-director of research for Florida A&M University Developmental Research School Freedom Schools, a Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools partner. Freedom Schools provide an opportunity for children from Tallahassee communities to participate in free summer camps focused on reading texts by diverse authors and making a difference in the world.  

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 A project team from Florida State University’s School of Communication Science & Disorders has been awarded a grant to use a technology-based approach to deliver literacy instruction for multilingual students with or at risk for disabilities.  

Carla Wood, director of the School of Communication Science & Disorders and project director, received the $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement this research in at least 10 Florida elementary schools. The grant will be distributed over a five-year period. 

 Working with the Florida Center for Interactive Media, the team aims to develop and demonstrate the use of technology to provide accessible educational materials and improve the English learners’ acquisition of academic words, vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. 

 “I’ve seen firsthand how some students can struggle in the classroom even with highly skilled teachers, due to the diverse learning needs of a class of students, especially among English learners,” Wood said. “This grant brings together an interdisciplinary team to address a very complex problem that has been my life’s work.” 

 The focus for this research is on English learners at the elementary school level, with or at risk for disabilities such as speech or language impairment, autism, deafness, hearing impairment, developmental delay or specific learning disabilities.  

 The added use of technology will allow students to interact with adaptive literacy instruction and receive instant feedback. By taking this project to schools across urban, suburban and rural areas of the state, the team hopes to learn the best ways to leverage technology to improve literacy outcomes for these students.  

 Wood, the director, strives to engage in collaborative research that takes an interdisciplinary approach. Her work focuses on improving language and literacy outcomes for children from various backgrounds and with differing abilities, while supporting opportunities for the next generation of scholars in the field. She became director of the School of Communication Science & Disorders in 2021.  

 The project team also includes Fengfeng Ke, Casey Guynes, Michelle Torres Chavarro and Sana Tibi.  

 Ke, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology & Learning Systems, brings expertise in instructional technologies for children with disabilities. Guynes will help integrate American Sign Language in this research. Doctoral student Chavarro and Tibi, an associate professor, will lend their knowledge to this project as crosslinguistic language experts. 

 “I am pleased and grateful for the approval of this funding,” said Michelle Kazmer, dean of the College of Communication and Information. “Dr. Wood has assembled an extraordinary interdisciplinary project team. Their development and demonstration of transformative uses of technology in this critical area will make a crucial difference in students’ lives.” 

 To learn more about the School of Communication Science & Disorders, visit commdisorders.cci.fsu.edu.  

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