Experts Guide

Norton studies the recognition and understanding of the role of clinician bias within the mental health professions and professional advocacy for clinical mental health counselors. He also studies the role of AI in counseling.

Brice studies speech and language among bilingual populations in individuals with and without disabilities. He can discuss how two languages interact across sound, meaning, and use, and how this affects special education, speech-language pathology, and education. His clinical expertise focuses on the assessment and treatment of Spanish-English–speaking students and clients.

Panos is director of research for the Center for Climate Literacy and is a founding editors for the newly launched open access practitioner pocket journal, Climate Literacy in Education. She and her colleagues recently launched a freely accessible resource portal as part of the Florida Environmental Natural History Portal -- Ecoliteracies for Climate Action in Florida.

Braun researches educational policy, disability studies, psychology and international and comparative education. She can discuss disparities in access to quality education across multiple categories of marginalization, including gender, home language, socioeconomic status, rural/urban, race and ethnicity and disability. Her work also focuses on inclusive education policy and practice for students with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Feldman studies how inservice science teachers learn from their practice in subjects including physics, environmental education and education for sustainability. He has been PI and co-PI of 18 National Science Foundation projects in collaboration school districts and colleagues in the sciences and engineering including environmental studies of acid mine drainage, arsenic in the environment, algal biofuels and water and wastewater treatment.

Dumford's research focuses on student engagement, learning and equity in postsecondary education, with expertise in quantitative research, data analytics and institutional effectiveness.

Cranston-Gingras is director of the Center for Migrant Education, and her whose work focuses on supporting children with disabilities and youth from migrant farmworker families through education and advocacy. She studies children who have been marginalized by schools and society including children with disabilities and those from migrant farmworker families.

Gunn's research and scholarship focus on:

--Literacy practices in the community outside of schools, such as prisons, museums and afterschool centers.

--Literacy in teacher education, emphasizing issues, strategies and tools that influence preservice and in-service teachers' practices.

--Literacy instruction in PreK-12 classrooms, including social-emotional learning, resilience and literacy development.

Banack's research focuses on the professional learning needs of middle and high school mentor teachers. She can discuss young adult literature, English education and secondary education.

Lovell has co-authored three English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) textbooks with USF colleague Jane Govoni. She has also published on Mark Twain, including an album that tells Mark Twain's life in spoken word and song featuring Jimmy Buffett, Clint Eastwood, Sheryl Crow, Brad Paisley, Emmylou Harris and others.

Topdemir can discuss school counselor accountability practices, school counselor advocacy, school counselor leadership and school counselor consultation. She has coordinated the college's Counselor Education MA program since 2011. She served as a school counselor for 14 years and has been a Licensed Mental Health Counselor for five years. She has created several program partnerships across the state.

Nieman's research focuses on helping physical education teachers understand and meet the different needs of their students. He studies how teachers can make PE more engaging, fair and relevant for kids from all kinds of backgrounds. He also look at what helps or prevents young people from getting involved in sports and physical activity, especially those who might not always feel included.

Osvath’s research explores the intersection of extended reality (XR), the Metaverse, video games and qualitative inquiry, examining how immersive and gamified environments can enhance teaching, learning and creative expression. His expertise includes strategically applying virtual and mixed reality to deepen engagement and expand multimodal forms of communication.

Zeidler's research in the field of science education centers on socioscientific issues — taking a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning about how moral and ethical issues can foster epistemic insight and moral character in the pursuit of scientific literacy. His work incorporates aspects of argumentation and discourse, moral reasoning and character formation, epistemic development and practices, place-based immersive scenarios and the nature of science.

Allsopp focuses on effective instructional practices — particularly in mathematics for students with learning and behavioral disabilities, as well as innovative approaches to teacher preparation.

Rosengrant is a lifelong gamer and award-winning physics educator who pioneers innovative teaching through virtual reality, gaming and STEM technology as the driving force behind USF’s cutting-edge INQ Lab. His research focuses on improving instructional quality in physics courses, and his scholarly interests include physics education, science education, problem solving, classroom and laboratory instruction, multiple representations, expert versus novice differences in learning and the use of educational technologies such as virtual and augmented reality and student attention using eye-tracking technology.

Michael studies educational policy at the federal, state and local levels, particularly racial desegregation policies from the 1960s and ‘70s. She was among the first researchers to study Jimmy Carter’s educational policies, beginning with his work as chairman of a Georgia county school board. She wrote the book "Jimmy Carter as Educational Policy Maker: Equal Opportunity and Efficiency," published in 2008.

Cobb-Roberts' research focuses on higher education leadership, mentoring as critically engaged praxis and institutional change.

Hadley's research focuses on how teachers can help foster young children’s oral language growth through conversations, shared book-reading and play. She is also interested in identifying pre-K literacy instructional methods that support later reading comprehension.

Shaunessy-Dedrick's research focuses on underrepresented groups of gifted children and social-emotional needs of International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement students.

Davis' research focuses on play therapy, creative counseling techniques and innovative practices in counselor education and supervision. He is a Florida Certified School Counselor, National Certified Counselor and School-Based Registered Play Therapist.

Vomvoridi-Ivanovic's research spans teacher education, mathematics education, science education and engineering education — primarily at the secondary and post-secondary levels. She focuses on broadening STEM participation, humanizing mathematics education and advancing teacher and student development through responsive pedagogy and interdisciplinary collaborations, and her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Kim's research focuses on propensity score analysis, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, Bayesian estimation and robust ANOVA in collaboration with faculty and graduate students.

Dart's research focuses on evidence-based behavioral and mental health interventions that promote students’ social, emotional and academic success in schools. He is a co-director of the School Mental Health Collaborative, a national research and technical assistance center that informs policy and practice to promote students' social-emotional and behavioral success.

Smith researches how computer games can help people learn science, language arts, second language learning and other disciplines, partly by embedding computer games into web-based eBooks. He has a patent that reinvents the novel and digital book technology to include online games and social interaction, to increase comprehension skills, content learning and the experience of the story.

Sun's research centers on understanding and enhancing motivation for physical activity among children and adolescents. the interactive effect of situational and self-initiated motivation in physical activity settings. She studies children/adolescent physical activity program design and evaluation as related to the physical, cognitive and motivational domains.

Ambush's research explores how education and community partnerships can help people learn, grow and thrive. He studies study how schools, families and local organizations can work together to create holistic learning experiences that build leadership, belonging and purpose, especially for youth. His work has reached more than 1,000 students annually through award-winning initiatives recognized locally, nationally and internationally for their innovation and measurable outcomes. 

Robinson is director of USF’s Critical, Creative and Design Thinking program and an award-winning educator and researcher whose pioneering work in arts integration and inclusive education has advanced interdisciplinary collaboration, teacher development and support for marginalized learners across Florida and beyond.

Berson's research examines how young children use digital technologies to explore the world, engage in civic inquiry and develop critical thinking. She studies technology, inquiry-based learning and children’s civic agency, shaping international conversations on digital citizenship, ethics and education in the digital age.

Francisco has been involved in supporting educational interpreters in the Deaf Education field for more than 15 years.

Castillo's research focuses on how to implement public health and community school approaches to removing barriers to student learning. He also investigates professional and practice issues relevant to school psychologists and co-directs the Institute for School-Community Partnerships, Integrated Services and Child Mental Health and Educational Policy -- a research and technical assistance center focused on improving educational and related services for children, youth, families and communities. Castillo's work broadly aims to support schools and their stakeholders by addressing real world problems of practice through community engaged research, implementation and evaluation efforts. 

Latimer's research focuses on making STEM education -- especially math -- more welcoming and meaningful for all students, both in formal and informal learning contexts. He studies how teachers prepare and grow in ways that honor student experiences, interests and needs and explores the experiences of academic mothers and how caregiving can inform and strengthen teaching, mentoring and educational leadership. He also examines out-of-school STEM programs to understand how young people develop confidence and a strong sense of identity in engineering and science.

Moore researches the attributes, dispositions and supports that contribute to the retention of urban educators, examining how individual qualities, leadership, school districts and policy impact their ability to thrive in challenging educational environments. Her recent scholarly work has addressed educator persistence and retention, the development of a robust urban teacher and leader pipeline and creating responsive, relevant classroom environments.

Evanovich's research interests include multi-tiered systems of support for behavior with a focus on positive behavior interventions and supports. Specifically, she is interested in academic and behavioral interventions for students with and at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders and to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline practices, including restraint and seclusion). She also studies the the use and integration of relationship based practices within a PBIS framework and evidence-based interventions for students with behavioral disorders.

Tadlock is a professor of education with experience as a department chair, college dean, provost, president and regional chancellor across six universities. He has past expertise in middle school education and young adolescent development. He can discuss educational leadership and change management in higher education. 

Sears' research focuses on curriculum issues, change initiatives in K-20 STEM settings, the development of reasoning and proof skills, clinical experiences in secondary mathematics and the integration of technology in mathematics.

Haraf studies teacher preparation, leadership and professional learning, with a focus on issues in urban elementary schools. She can discuss elementary education, teacher education, school-university partnerships, teacher candidate supervision, teacher leadership and access and opportunity in urban education.

Her research investigates: how teacher education programs can help prepare early childhood teachers to work with children and families from all backgrounds and develop critical perspectives; how different beliefs and practices influence the education of young children in globalized contexts; and how Asian American children and families experience schools and teachers, and how they can be improved.

With three decades of combined experience in teaching, instruction, and curriculum development across K-12 educational settings, Arthur specializes in advancing innovative, experiential and inquiry-based teaching and learning. Her work focuses on evidence-based practices that support the preparation and ongoing development of pre- and in-service teachers across diverse subject areas. She has specific expertise in the design and execution of convergence education, universal design for learning (UDL), inquiry-based instruction, Generative Artificial Intelligence to support technological pedagogical content knowledge and cultivating content-rich, collaborative partnerships with local STEM-based organizations committed to inspiring and equipping the next generation of educators.

Bennett's research focuses on culturally sustaining pedagogy, literacy and arts in carceral spaces such as prisons, community literacy, multicultural literature and teacher education. She and a colleague recently partnered with the Florida Department of Corrections to work with prisoners on improving their literacy rates and mental health.

Katz has spent more than 45 years in education as a pre-K-12 teacher, curriculum coordinator, assistant principal, principal, director of leadership in Sarasota County and adjunct professor. Her research and expertise interests include students with disabilities, K-8 leadership, private schools, curriculum, human resource management, change management, coaching/mentoring and professional learning for school leaders, site analysis and administrative teamwork. She initiated a comprehensive career pathway for leaders in Sarasota County, including a leadership academy, new leader induction program, a mentoring program with retired leaders and collaborative partner teams for new principals.