Thirteen faculty members from a variety of disciplines joined the Johns Hopkins School of Education community on July 1.
They are visiting professors Kate Allman, Carey Borkoski, Angela Coker, Wendy Drexler, Wendy Osefo and Sherri Prosser, and assistant professors Jeffrey Grigg, Ranjini JohnBull, Richard Lofton, Cynthia Millikin, Antigoni Papadimitriou, Julianna Pare-Blagoev and Betsy Wolf.
“We’re proud to have these outstanding scholars join our faculty,” said Mariale Hardiman, interim dean of the School of Education. “They reflect a rich diversity of thought and practice, and their perspectives confirm that the School of Education, as well as society, is a true mosaic.”
Kate Allman
Allman holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and specializes in teacher education, English education, and immigration and education, with a particular focus on the Middle East. She previously served as director of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Duke University. She will teach in the MAT program and serve in the Accreditation and Assessment Office.
Borkoski, who is teaching in the online EdD program, has a joint appointment at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding relevant learning theory and empirical evidence to inform the use of effective instructional strategies in order to build human capital. Her research examines the current culture around teaching in higher education institutions and particularly research universities.
Coker will share her expertise in the counseling program in the areas of scholarship that includes women’s issues, group work and the internationalization of counseling. She is the author of numerous publications, and examined cultural diversity in Brazil as a 2011 Fulbright-Hays scholar. In 2013 she served as a sabbaticant in the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Botswana, where she researched how culture impacted the practice of counseling in that country.
Wendy Drexler
Drexler is program lead for the Technology for Educators MS program. She has been a champion for effective integration of technology in K-12, higher education and corporate settings for over 20 years. Prior to that, she served as chief innovation officer for the International Society for Technology in Education. In her former role as director of online development at Brown University, she led the design and production of the university’s first online courses.
Grigg is affiliated with the Center for the Social Organization of Schools and Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC). He recently completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship with BERC and the Science Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools project. His research interests include student mobility and transitions, intergenerational inequality, student non-cognitive skills, teacher professional development and causal inference in real-world settings. Drexler is program lead for the Technology for Educators MS program. She has been a champion for effective integration of technology in K-12, higher education and corporate settings for over 20 years. Prior to that, she served as chief innovation officer for the International Society for Technology in Education. In her former role as director of online development at Brown University, she led the design and production of the university’s first online courses.
Jeffrey Grigg
JohnBull serves as the faculty lead for the Mind, Brain, and Teaching program. Her work centers on improving educational and life outcomes of traditionally disadvantaged students and children living in poverty through research on teacher beliefs and teacher practice. To that end, she focuses on teacher efficacy, the social contexts in which these beliefs change, and interventions that improve teaching efficacy and teacher practice.
Lofton was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Social Organization of Schools before joining the faculty. His research interests include educational and social policy, critical/cultural theories, qualitative field research methods, and sociology of education. His dissertation, “Plessy’s Tracks: A study of the Roots and Routes of Tracking in a Suburban Middle School Community,” explores how African American students and parents confront academic placement in a racially diverse school. He recently co-published, with James Earl David, “Toward a Black Habitus: African Americans Navigating Systemic Inequalities Within Home, School, and Community,” in the Journal of Negro Education.
Millikin is program director for early learning and children’s interactive media in the Center for Technology in Education. Previously she was director of results driven accountability for the Colorado Department of Education. She also was an assistant director of exceptional student services in Aurora Public Schools in Colorado, and an instructional specialist in Prince George’s County Public Schools from 1984 to 2000.
Papadimitriou is an expert in quality management, strategic planning and organizational change in the Division of Public Safety Leadership. She is author of The Enigma of Quality in Greek Higher Education: A Mixed Methods Study of Introducing Quality Management into Greek Higher Education, published in 2011, and more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.
Paré-Blagoev is trained in developmental psychology and educational neuroscience, and teaches in the Mind, Brain, and Teaching program. Her research efforts include understanding and addressing the unique educational needs of pediatric survivors of childhood cancer. Her earlier work included lab-based research that used a combination of brain and behavioral methods to explore skill and language learning.
Osefo teaches in the EdD program. Her research examines how race and class influence the learning, achievement and educational trajectories of non-dominant students in schools and community settings, and explores the intersections between race, equity and underserved student groups in K-12 and postsecondary learning communities.
Sherri Prosser
Prosser teaches Multiple Perspectives on Teaching and Learning; Technologies and Creative Learning; and Contemporary Approaches to Educational Problems.
Her research interests include professional development; online learning; mathematics education; special education; educational technology; and teacher research. She has published two peer-reviewed articles and has co-presented at nine conferences.
Wolf is an assistant professor at the Center for Research and Reform in Education, and has expertise in educational program evaluation, quantitative research design (including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experiments and mixed methods), statistical methods and data management. She manages the quantitative design and analyses for two validation studies funded by U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grants. These program evaluations focus on estimating the efficacy of professional development programs, one for principals and the other for teachers of English learners.
