Fourteen new faculty bolster college’s strength this autumn

Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Science, Department of Human Sciences

Research Interests: Intimate partner violence among queer families

Autumn Bermea earned her PhD in Family Science and Human Development from Montclair State University and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the college’s inaugural Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Her research focuses on social justice and the role of privilege in intimate partner violence (IPV) in the queer community. Her work is centered on four main themes:

• How experiences of minority stress impact intimate partner violence
• The role of contextual factors in leaving abusive relationships and accessing responsive services
• The influence of intersectional identities (e.g., race, socioeconomic status) on experiences of intimate partner violence
• Developing theory in intimate partner violence to reflect the above factors, specifically feminist theory, intersectionality, and queer theory

She specializes in the use of qualitative methodologies, including thematic analysis, grounded theory and phenomenology. She also works in theory development.

Bermea has received several national awards. Among them, her work on culturally responsive intimate partner violence intervention practices for queer survivors was awarded the Jessie Barnard Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship Paper Award from the National Council on Family Relations in 2019.

Her work has appeared in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Interpersonal Violence and Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.

Bermea has presented her work at multiple meetings of the National Council on Family Relations, as well as at meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence and at an annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

Visiting Assistant Professor; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education; Department of Teaching and Learning

Research Interests: Science learning and cognition, self-efficacy, assessments

Lucía B. Chacón-Díaz holds a bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biochemistry and a master’s in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in chemistry education. She was a biology and chemistry high school teacher in Mexico before earning a doctorate in curriculum and instruction with a focus on biology education research at New Mexico State University.

She has experience with providing STEM out-of-school-time programs to underserved communities in the Southwest region of the United States.

Chacón-Díaz was named a recipient of the 2020 Jhumki Basu Scholar Award by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. She is current a 2020-2022 AERA Minority Meta-Analysis Fellow, a program of the American Educational Research Association supported by the Spencer Foundation. 

Chacón-Díaz currently is engaged in an international collaboration that centers on developing a meta-learning framework, in the context of science education, by extracting basic principles from the field of artificial intelligence.

She is also working on the development of an integrated curriculum to provide an understanding of basic neurobiology in the context of learning, and the implications of mental health within the learning process.

In her new position, she will continue her collaboration with the Center for Life Sciences Education at Ohio State to evaluate content knowledge in assessments and student performance based on each question’s cognitive level.

She originally joined the college as part of the 2019 inaugural cohort of the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship program.

Clinical Associate Professor and Director, Couple and Family Therapy Clinic, Human Development and Family Science, Department of Human Sciences

Research Interests: Adolescent and young adult eating disorder treatment/prevention with a special focus on underserved populations; mental health of Black adolescents; trauma-informed care; culturally relevant mental health treatment; spiritually integrated therapy; clinical training and supervision to address racial trauma and other forms of systemic oppression

A native of Akron, Ohio, Ashley Hicks, '16 PhD, returns to Ohio State after establishing herself as a sought-after teacher, supervisor and clinician in the field of couple and family therapy. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing-trained therapist, an American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy-approved supervisor and a 200 hour-registered yoga teacher.

Hicks joins the college from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary where she was associate professor of marriage and family therapy for five years, teaching and training master’s students and conducting research. She has offered research-based trainings and presentations at the local, state and national level to mental health providers, healthcare providers, clergy, community and government groups to help better address mental health concerns such as eating disorders and address anti-Black racism in clinical practice.

Hicks has worked in a number of clinical settings serving clients from diverse backgrounds, including racial/ethnic minorities, LGBTQ populations, homeless and low socioeconomic individuals and families. Her clinical practice, which draws on her research findings, focuses primarily on the needs of Black individuals and families as well as those struggling with body image and eating disorders. She has provided local, regional and national training on addressing issues of race, justice and diversity in clinical practice.

Hicks' goal is to produce scholarship and engage in teaching that moves the field of couple and family therapy forward. She trains students to provide effective, culturally relevant and holistic care and to create evidence for effective approaches to clinical care for all people.

Her clinical teaching, supervision, research and service all work toward a common goal to promote increased awareness, access and use of mental health services among low income, ethnic minority and other marginalized populations.

Professor, Counselor Education, Department of Educational Studies

Research Interests: Eradicating equity issues in health and education through innovative provider training, collaboration and intervention.

Kaprea Johnson joins the college from Virginia Commonwealth University where she was a tenured faculty member in the Department of Counseling and Special Education. Her interests are broadly situated in interrogating education and healthcare systems as they relate to addressing social determinants of health needs, equity, access and justice.

Her research priorities include, intervening on social determinants of health challenges in education and healthcare settings; interprofessional collaboration between educators and allied and mental health care professionals; and interrogating systems that fail historically marginalized and otherized children and transitional-aged youth.

She is an experienced scholar with over $5 million in grant-funded projects as either principal investigator or co-principal investigator. Her work is widely distributed in national and international journals, she has two co-authored books on culturally responsive school counseling practice, 100+ presentations and several practitioner-oriented publications. She also is a Licensed Professional Counselor-Resident.

At the national level, Johnson is affiliated with several American Counseling Association branches and divisions, a related special interest group of the American Educational Research Association, as well as allied health organizations.

Her most recent service with these organizations include the following:

• Editor of The Adultspan Journal, Association for Adult Development and Aging
• Associate Editor, Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Association for Humanistic Counseling, a division of the American Counseling Association
• Co-chair, 2021-2022, Research and Knowledge Committee, American Counseling Association
• Secretary, 2021-2022, Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision
• Co-chair, 2020-2021, Writer’s Consortium, Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development
• Member, Research and Publication, a subcommittee of the Diversity and Inclusion Interest Network, Association for Counselor Educators

When Johnson is not working, she enjoys spending time with her family and Goldendoodle named Power. Lastly, reading, traveling and a good laugh is her recipe for keeping her Sanity, Soul and Spirit.

Assistant Professor, Couple and Family Therapy, Human Development and Family Science, Department of Human Sciences

Research Interests: Child welfare, children's complex trauma and family reunification Areas of clinical specialization: Child welfare, complex trauma, trauma-focused treatments, family reunification, structural family therapy

Ashley Landers, PhD, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Clinical Fellow, an Approved Supervisor and a Minority Fellowship Recipient. As a community-engaged scholar, her research predominantly has encompassed projects that are co-created in partnership with the American Indian community.

The findings of her scholarship have been used to achieve social change in response to identified needs within the American Indian community related to child removal, reunification and adoption. Her work was recently cited in the Washington State Supreme Court.

Landers’ research focuses on families in child welfare, more specifically marginalized, underserved minority families such as American Indian families involved with the child welfare system. In her studies, she examines what happens to children following maltreatment (e.g., foster care, adoption, reunification) and how these children and families fare (e.g., maltreatment recurrence, mental health problems, school engagement).

The engaged manner in which Landers approaches her research is mirrored in her teaching and supervision. She promotes learning as an engaged collaborative process that is co-created with her students. She invites them to share their own knowledge and experience in the classroom and to study themselves as they are studying families.

Nina Mae Mattus Endowed Clinical Associate Professor, Fashion and Retail Studies, Department of Human Sciences

Research Interests: Consumer-driven aspects of the fashion industry as they contend with advances in technology, shortened product lifecycles and demands for more social responsibility and transparency

Tasha Lewis will join the college in January 2022 from Cornell University, where she is an associate professor in the Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design. She teaches in the area of fashion design management.

Her primary research has focused on environmental issues that influence the development of sustainable fashion products and the supporting manufacturing processes for these products in order to assess value for the fashion supply chain.

Her most recent focus within sustainable fashion has been the post-consumer stage of the textile and clothing recycling process.

Her secondary research stream includes consumer experiences with technology-based products and services, primarily through the lens of technology adoption intent among apparel retail employees and consumer acceptance of wearable technology.

She is widely published in journals such as the Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, Fashion Practice and the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice and contributed to two textbooks: Global Perspectives on Sustainable Fashion and The Fashion Business Reader: An Interdisciplinary and Global Approach, both from Bloomsbury Publishing.

She has research funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Walmart Foundation’s U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Fund to study the use of post-consumer textile waste as a substitute for new textiles.

Lewis has worked in the apparel industry in areas of production, sourcing and retail operations and maintains ongoing contact with industry professionals to inform her research. She is a member of the Communications Committee of Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Practices.

She holds BA in Spanish from Ohio State and an MS in consumer and textile science from the college. She earned a PhD in apparel design from Cornell University.

Mary Fried Endowed Clinical Assistant Professor; Lead, Reading Recovery and Literacy Collaborative; Department of Teaching and Learning

Research interest: Teacher professional development, building teacher expertise with an emphasis on best practice, evidence-based literacy instruction

Jamie Lipp is an experienced educator serving in the K-12 setting for 15 years before joining the Reading Recovery, Literacy Collaborative and KEEP BOOKS team at the college in 2017. She has served as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, Reading Recovery teacher, English language arts curriculum specialist, university instructor and Reading Recovery trainer. Since January 2020, Lipp has also served as the interim lead for Reading Recovery and Literacy Collaborative within the college.

Lipp received a BSEd and MEd in the college’s Early Childhood Education program in 2001 and 2003, respectively. While working in the K-12 setting, she earned a 2017 PhD in Curriculum and Instruction - Literacy from Ohio University with a focus on the multi-faceted role of today’s reading specialist.

Lipp supports teachers in teaching responsively to accelerate literacy learning for elementary students and beyond. She has contributed to two books and has published articles in multiple literacy-related journals, with more underway. She is a frequently featured and invited speaker at literacy conferences nationwide. Her talks focus on empowering teachers to create lifelong readers and writers.

Lipp currently serves as the implementation section editor for the Journal of Reading Recovery. She chairs the Literacy Lessons Advisory Committee for the Reading Recovery Council of North America, a membership group, and leads Literacy Lessons training for Ohio State-affiliated teacher leaders who work with school districts in seven states and Washington D.C. Lipp also leads the Ohio Reading Recovery Council, supporting advocacy and implementation of Reading Recovery throughout Ohio.

Assistant Professor, Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education, Department of Teaching and Learning

Research Interests: Critical social and political theory including the study of settler colonialism and racial capitalism in and through schooling; right wing (re)production; civic and democratic education; critical ethnography; youth political action research

Dinorah Sánchez Loza's work is guided by one central question: What relationship exists between schooling and how youth come to think and act politically? Her research agenda has three broad areas of focus: (1) theories of settler colonialism and its structuring of race, gender and political/economic relations; (2) democracy within a racialized/colonial public sphere; and (3) the teaching and learning of politics and civic engagement.

Methodologically, she situates her work in the critical qualitative tradition employing ethnography, interviewing and participatory action research. Her most recent project examines how settler colonialism, white nationalism and right-wing politics are (re)produced in predominantly white schools.

She received her PhD in social and cultural studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and also holds extensive experience as a practitioner, having taught students and teachers in such diverse settings as Los Angeles, Japan, the Dominican Republic and the San Francisco Bay Area. She joins the Department of Teaching and Learning after forming part of the inaugural cohort of the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship program.

Sánchez Loza has received funding for her work from the Ford Foundation, the Institute for the Study of Social Issues and the Center for Right Wing Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Most recently, she received a grant from The Women’s Place at The Ohio State University to continue analyses of the ways gender shapes political ideologies among adolescent girls.

Assistant Professor, Educational Policy, Department of Educational Studies

Research Interests: How federal, state and local education policies impact the educational experiences of students of color and students with disabilities, how educational disparities persist in K-12 public education

A nationally certified school psychologist, Rhodesia McMillian received her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia after consecutive careers of being an autism teacher, a school psychologist and intervention specialist. She joined the college in 2019 as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Utilizing critical methodologies and theories, McMillian is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research bridges K-12 education reform law, education policy, elementary and secondary educational governance, special education law and sociology.

She has worked in public schools for more than 10 years and currently is contracted with Columbus City Schools as a school psychologist. She also served at the university level for close to five years as associate director of K-12 Access, Programming and Engagement in the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Most recently, McMillian received a Spencer Foundation grant to analyze federal court appeals involving K-12 schools titled "A Constitutional Right to Education: A Multi-case Analysis of K–12 Educational Jurisprudence Among the United States Circuit Courts."

She is a member of the University Council for Educational Administration, a national organization, and has presented at its annual convention, as well as at the annual conferences of the American Educational Research Foundation.

Assistant Professor, Higher education and student affairs, Department of Educational Studies

Research Interests: Academic resilience, racial battle fatigue and use of research evidence.

Kristen J. Mills first joined the college as part of the 2019 inaugural cohort of the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship program. Her research examines what factors or combination of factors influences academic resilience among racially and ethnically minoritized students, and how Black students experience racial battle fatigue in secondary and higher education. Additionally, her research examines how educators use research evidence.

Mills aims to strengthen practices and interventions that promote both academic success and well-being among traditionally underrepresented students. Her work is published in journals such as Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Black Psychology, Evidence and Policy, Educational Research Review and American Journal of Community Psychology.

She was recently awarded the Carol Weiss Prize by Evidence and Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice in recognition of outstanding early career contributions to the journal.

Mills earned a PhD in ecological-community psychology from Michigan State University in 2019, where she was a King-Chávez-Parks Future Faculty Fellow, Beinecke Scholar and Rasmussen Fellow.

Clinical Associate Professor, Fashion and Retail Studies, Department of Human Sciences

Research Interests: Ethical decision making by consumers and fashion industry professionals, inter-generational fashion influences, consumers' motives for their fashion choices, how clothing and politics mix

Ann Paulins’ teaching mission is to advance knowledge in the field of fashion and retail studies in a manner that improves quality of life and well-being for people who design, develop, manufacture, promote, sell, consume and wear apparel and textiles products.

She has co-authored Ethics in the Fashion Industry (2020) and Guide to Fashion Career Planning: Job Search, Resumes and Strategies for Success (2016), both topics of interest in her teaching and research.

In addition to teaching courses focused on career development and ethical decision making of consumers, Paulins teaches courses about branding, social media and fashion buying/assortment planning. She seeks to support social justice in her scholarly activities, bringing diverse experiences and voices to her classrooms and research projects, such as in her current project, “The meaning of the pussyhat: Voices of people from marginalized populations.”

Paulins served in 2020 as president of the International Textiles and Apparel Association, a professional higher education organization for scholars, educators and students in textile and apparel-related disciplines.

During 2021 she has been chair-elect for the Board of Phi Upsilon Omicron Educational Foundation, the national honor society for Family and Consumer Sciences disciplines. She serves as co-guest editor for a special issue of the Clothing and Textiles Research Journal focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning scheduled for publication in 2022.

Paulins joins the college from Ohio University, from which she recently retired. She was a professor of retail and fashion merchandising, and later a senior associate dean for research and graduate studies in the Patton College of Education. Paulins is an alumna of the college, having earned her PhD in what was previously called the Textiles and Clothing program.

Clinical Assistant Professor, Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education, and Assistant Director of Teacher Education and Director of Recruitment, Mentoring and Retention for Diversity and Social Justice, Department of Teaching and Learning

Research Interests: Critical literacies; queer, trans, Black and indigenous people of color (QTBIPOC) and first-generation preservice teachers; equity and social justice in education

Jenell Igeleke Penn brings to her faculty role nine years of experience teaching English Language Arts in central Ohio middle and secondary schools. She is no stranger to the college, having first been a work-study student for now Professor Emeritus Jerry Zurtell while earning her bachelor’s in English. She earned an MEd in English Education from the college in 2007.

Penn returned to the college to study for a PhD while serving as a graduate teaching assistant. Later, she transitioned to a program manager working with students in the English Education and Social Studies Education Licensure programs for grades seven through 12. Penn completed her PhD in Adolescent, Postsecondary and Community Literacies in 2020.

Penn’s research interests center around how nurturing spaces and visibility in the areas of pedagogy and curriculum for teachers and youth who are queer, trans, Black and indigenous people of color (QTBIPOC) can help them experience and share affirmation, community, joy and liberation.

In addition to conducting research and teaching, Penn chairs the college’s annual Equity and Diversity Educator Conference for preservice teachers and co-facilitates the college’s book clubs and programming for youth in local school districts.

In 2020, Penn was named a Fellow of the Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color Fellowship Program of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). In this capacity, she is receiving two years of support, mentoring and networking opportunities. Her mentor is Arnetha F. Ball, the Charles E. Ducommun Endowed Professor Emerita, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University.  

Assistant Professor, School Psychology, Department of Educational Studies

Research Interests: Counseling psychology, including mental health and academic achievement, multicultural counseling and supervision, psychosocial variables (i.e., shame, impostorism, discrimination, resilience, marginalization, racial identity), racial ally development

Steven Stone-Sabali’s research employs a psychological lens to investigate the mental health and educational experiences of young adults of color, with a focus on Black and African American individuals. This includes examining variables that promote or hinder their well-being and educational success.

His research program also seeks to identify essential characteristics and components of antiracist individuals and trainings, as well as factors that help others form positive cross-racial relationships with young adults of color.

Stone-Sabali has aided the development of learners from third grade to nontraditionally aged college students. He has provided career and traditional psychotherapy to individuals and groups, including low-cost therapy for underserved and under-resourced community members. He has designed and facilitated mental health wellness programs and guided organizations in creating inclusive policies and practices.

Stone-Sabali has presented at national conferences of the American Psychological Association and the Association of Black Psychologists. He holds editorial positions on the Journal of Black Psychology and the journal Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. He also is a research scholar in residence with Ohio State’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Stone-Sabali earned his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, where his dissertation won the endowed Benjamin and Dorothy Fruchter Centennial Award for Excellence in Educational Psychology Research at the Doctoral Level. He first joined the college as a visiting assistant professor in 2019.

Clinical Associate Professor; Learning Technologies, Co-Director, Center for Technology and Innovation; Department of Educational Studies

Research Interests: Psychology applied to teaching and learning, K12 professional learning, instructional problem solving and innovation, online education, instructional design (especially learner engagement and adjusting to learner differences), mixed-methods research approaches

Since 1999, Tracey A. Stuckey (aka Dr. Tray) has held various roles, including learning specialist, trainer, K-5 partnership school technology liaison, distance and nontraditional learning administrator, faculty development leader and concurrently during these roles, a college-level educator. 

She has credentials in psychology, educational psychology and quantitative methods and holds an EdD in instructional technology. In addition to other formal training in distance education, she is also a certified Quality Matters Course Reviewer. Coming from a family of educators, she believes in the power of education — both formal and informal — to close gaps, effect social change and help people find and embrace their unique place to the world.

In 2010, she joined Ohio State as a senior lecturer in the Educational Psychology and Quantitative Research, Evaluation and Measurement programs. In this role, she has collaborated on several funded research endeavors, most recently an Institute of Education Sciences-funded methods training grant to build capacity for use of evidence-based interventions in K-12 education.

Having moved to fully online teaching in late 2015, Stuckey has many hard-learned lessons to share about meeting students’ diverse needs, adjusting to change, dealing with the psychological fallout of risk-taking and cultivating a spirit of creative problem-solving and innovation.

Through classes, workshops, individual consults and invited speaking appearances, she has shared insights and guidance with students, colleagues, K-12 educators and other professionals as they navigated the challenging transitions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her new roles, she plans to expand this work to broader audiences and help to establish the Department of Educational Studies as a leader in these areas.