Introducing the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellows – 2022

Tuba Gezer joins the college from Johns Hopkins University, where she spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher with the Institute for Education Policy in the School of Education. Prior to that, she completed her PhD in educational research, measurement and evaluation at the Cato College of Education, University of North Carolina – Charlotte.

Gezer’s research interests focus on English learners, English learners with disabilities, academic achievement, structural equation modeling, research methodology, digital citizenship and the digital divide. She is passionate about equity and equality in educational settings.

Gezer has extensive experience working on research projects. While at the University of North Carolina, she served as a program evaluator for the National Science Foundation for the funded Digital Citizenship project, which addressed cyber safety knowledge and skills among middle school students. She conducted data analysis for the project and presented digital citizenship workshops to teachers and technology facilitators.

While earning an MEd at Ohio University, Gezer worked on the Scaffolding Inquiry and Problem Solving through Literacy and Assessment Strategies program funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. She also developed and evaluated a curriculum assessment tool for the institutional assessment and accreditation of the university’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Gezer has presented widely, including annually at the American Educational Research Association conference, as well as at conferences such as the Association for Educational Communication and Technology and the EdMedia World Conference on Educational Media and Technology.

She is the recipient of the Excellent Research on Inclusion and Accessibility in Education Assessment award from the American Educational Research Association. She has published articles in journals such as the American Journal of Distance Education and the Journal of Research on Technology in Education.

Noemi Linares-Ramirez earned a PhD and MA in sociology from the University of California – Irvine. Her research examines how racially underrepresented groups (i.e., Black, Latinx and Native Americans) demand and experience change in educational institutions. She is especially interested in how race shapes the role that students, school personnel and external organizations play in the outcomes of diversity initiatives in education settings.

Her dissertation examined the experiences of low-income, racially diverse students in free STEM programs sponsored by technology companies. She identified factors, agents and individuals that are important for understanding the achievement, motivation and retention of students within STEM fields.

With an emphasis on comprehensive school experiences, her work is part of a broader conversation on race, class, equality and education. Linares-Ramirez engages primarily with qualitative methods, for instance interviews and ethnography, but she has also developed and analyzed surveys and assessments.

Linares-Ramirez’s research has been supported by the Mellon Mays Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, including one for her dissertation and another to conduct qualitative research for Code for America. She has been an advisor in both university and community, including at Bridge to Connect, which supports diverse first-generation college students in succeeding in STEM careers.

She presents at national conferences such as the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems, which honored her with the best student paper award in her division.

Linares-Ramirez served as a lead annotator for the virtual library of the Berkley Law Center Reproductive Rights and Justice Virtual Library for works on reproductive justice of Native Americans in the United States.

Leslie K. Morrow received her doctorate in educational policy studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She focused on social and cultural studies of education with minors in gender and women’s studies and queer studies. During her studies, Morrow also served as the university’s director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center.

Morrow’s research and praxis as a Black, queer academic explores the lived experiences, labor and strategies of resistance of historically marginalized, disenfranchised and under-resourced groups, especially Black queer and trans folks in higher education. She has published in the journal Women, Gender and Families of Color and has a forthcoming article in a special issue of that journal honoring bell hooks’ legacy.

Morrow uses qualitative-based frameworks and methods that include autoethnography and participant observation with an intentional focus on anti-Blackness, queer pedagogies, equity and justice as they relate to educational policy and leadership.

Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, informed by Black Feminisms, Queer of Color Critique and Critical Race Theory. It offers an alternative approach to doing/thinking about research that relies on Black Feminist/Radical knowledge traditions, utilizing an affective stance of feeling or being different that challenges dominant discourses of normativity and professionalism within higher education.

Morrow has received numerous awards and support for her work, including being selected for the competitive, national Steinhardt Faculty First-Look Fellow professional development program at New York University. She has been an invited panelist or facilitator for the National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change Conference and for the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals.
 
Morrow received her MS from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, where she also served as coordinator, then interim assistant director of the Office of Diversity Affairs.

John Paul Anders received his PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in nutrition and exercise physiology. His research interests focus on how the body adapts to acute and chronic exercise.

Specifically, Anders’ interests include: the influence of acute, fatiguing exercise on neuromuscular and cognitive function; how exercise training can enhance resiliency and mitigate the neuromuscular and cognitive detriments associated with fatigue; and the influence of nutritional supplements in optimizing performance and facilitating exercise training adaptations.

Additionally, Anders recruits male and female participants and examines sex differences in exercise responses, in part to provide a greater representation of women in exercise science research. He has used electromyography to examine sex differences in neuromuscular activation strategies during maximal exercise, as well as near-infrared spectroscopy to examine muscle oxygenation dynamics under fatiguing conditions.

Anders is interested in collaborating on health-related initiatives that include nutrition, exercise and physical activity with underserved and racial/ethnic minority populations.

He has been lead author in articles that appeared most recently in the Journal of
Musculoskeletal and Neuronal Interactions, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise and the European Journal of Applied Physiology.     

Anders has presented at national conferences, including presenting at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and being a sponsored presenter at the 2019 annual meeting of the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He has previously served as co-principal investigator on grants from Phenolics LLC and Natreon Inc. investigating the effects of different nutritional products on muscular strength in resistance training. He also is currently co-PI on studies funded by GNC Holdings LLC.

Prior to his doctoral program, Anders received a BS in exercise science education and an MS in kinesiology from the college, making him an alumnus. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist from the National Strength and Condition Association.

Cydni M. Robertson earned a PhD from the Department of Textile and Apparel Management, University of Missouri. With a 2021 U.S. Fulbright Student Research award, she conducted her dissertation research in El Salvador, analyzing the connections between globalization, free-trade policies, gender inequality and the apparel manufacturing industry.

Robertson’s research interests include studying economic development indicators to improve women’s empowerment initiatives in the global textile and apparel supply chain through public policy analysis. She also studies dress and identity expressions within communities of color.

She has given of number of invited lectures both internationally and nationally, including several while in El Salvador, one with support from the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative, U.S. Department of Commerce.

In addition to the funding for her dissertation from the Fulbright program, Robertson received funding from the Southern Regional Education Board and Pi Alpha Alpha, the Global Public Service Leadership Society. She served as a graduate researcher on several projects with her faculty and has three journal articles and one case study submitted.

Her most recent presentations were at peer-reviewed conferences, including one at the 2021 American Collegiate Retail Association - American Marketing Association conference and three presentations at the 2021 International Textile and Apparel Association Conference.

Having served as a lecturer and graduate teaching assistant during her degrees, she is especially experienced at teaching social psychology and history of dress, international fashion supply chain and fashion entrepreneurship.

She worked in retail sales team management and digital marketing/analytics, including for Omni Hotels in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, for a total of five years before pursuing her doctoral degree.

Robertson’s master’s degree is in public leadership from The University of North Texas – Dallas.

Ye Shen earned a PhD in the Literacy Development and Learning Problems program at the University of Delaware. She has both an MA in education from Delaware and an MEd from the University of Maryland – College Park.
Shen’s research broadly focuses on multilingual language development and literacy acquisition among culturally and linguistically diverse children, for instance emergent bilinguals and multilingual learners.

She examines cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms underlying multilingualism and multiliteracy, as well as external factors, such as literacy practices, bilingual programming and socioeconomic status, that impact child development.

She takes an interdisciplinary approach using both behavioral and neuroimaging measures to study the cross-linguistic processes underlying multilingual literacy acquisition. She uses quantitative analytical approaches, such as structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, multiple regression and time series analysis.

Shen received support for her dissertation research from multiple sources, including an American Educational Research Association – National Science Foundation grant, an award from the American Psychological Association and another from the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Association – Modern Language Journal.
She has served as a graduate researcher on several projects, including on a Spencer Foundation conference grant on the subject of “The Intersection of Racial Equity and Time-Series Methods.”

Shen’s articles have appeared most recently in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Reading and Writing.

She chaired and presented at two peer-reviewed symposia at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR) conference and American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. She has presented at other national conferences, including most recently at the 44th Cognitive Science Society meeting.

Prior to pursuing the doctoral program at the University of Delaware, Shen worked as a Chinese immersion teacher in Delaware.