With another academic year under way, the College of Education and Human Ecology welcomes five new faculty members who are helping expand the breadth and depth of our experience and research capabilities. Their diverse perspectives will shape student learning and extend the college's impact into our community and beyond.
Charis Price
Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Special Education
Interests: Social-emotional development of children in inclusive urban early childhood environments; suspension and expulsion of preschool-aged children; effective family partnerships; implementation science
Courses: Educational Assessment in Early Childhood Special Education (ESSPED 5760)
Price’s work focuses on training teachers on evidence-based practices to reduce suspension and expulsion of preschool children, and examining family perspectives about the suspension and expulsion process. Her research aims to improve school-based services for children, family relationships with schools and school climate. She combines her background in early childhood literacy with her scholarship in social-emotional development to address challenging behavior among young children. She will spearhead efforts between Teaching and Learning and Special Education to develop a unified early childhood and early childhood special education program for the college. A board-certified behavior analyst, she piloted an intervention to help young children learn routines and transitions. She has an undergraduate degree in cello performance, and one day hopes to investigate using music as an intervention tool for young children needing social-emotional supports.
“My work largely focuses on teachers’ acquisition of evidence-based practices to support children while they are in school, which is where they should be so early on they learn critical skills needed for later school success,” Price said.
Winston C. Thompson
Assistant Professor, Philosophy and History of Education
Interests: Philosophy of education, ethics, social and political philosophy, race, access and retention in higher education, justice, applied philosophy, educational policy
Courses: Philosophy of Education (ESPHE 6410)
Thompson joins the Educational Studies faculty from the University of New Hampshire. His recent scholarship explores access to and value of education, the philosophical and ethical issues in education as well as race and education related to John Rawls’ ideal theory. Thompson served as a faculty fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics in 2016-17 where he worked on a monograph exploring the mainstream view of the relationship between education and politics.
“While I was most certainly aware of the world-class reputation of scholarship and research at EHE, it was my interaction with the people of the college that drew me to Ramseyer Hall,” Thompson said. “I am eager to engage the passionate curiosity of our students and am very grateful for the real warmth and generosity of colleagues in Educational Studies. I am very much looking forward to continuing the program's fine trajectory of growth and impact in the fields of Philosophy and History of Education. This is an exciting time to join the Buckeye community!”
Thompson earned his doctoral degree, with distinction, from Teacher’s College at Columbia University in 2011.
Bruce Makoto Arnold
Assistant Professor, Philosophy and History of Education
Interests: Post-1860s U.S. cultural history and transnational ethnohistory with interests in Asian American, African American, technological, consumer, family, and educational histories, as well as the history of technology and computing.
Courses: Foundations of Historical Inquiry in Education (ESPHE 8895)
Arnold joins Educational Studies after serving as a postdoctoral researcher in the Philosophy and History of Education specialization. His scholarship in the history of education examines the childhoods and education of Asian Americans prior to World War II as well as the connections between education and spirituality of Black American students. He also researches how computing and technology influence education in history.
Prior to earning his PhD in 2014, Arnold was a computer engineer for 17 years. As assistant professor, he would like to expand course offerings on minorities in education, urban education and qualitative methodology, particularly how to use history to enact change.
“I’m extremely excited to come into a department and program with such a rich and storied tradition! Working with such fabulous scholars and top-notch students is one of the things I’m sure I will come to cherish about my time at Ohio State.”
Lisa Patrick Pinkerton
Clinical Assistant Professor
Marie Clay Endowed Chair in Reading Recovery and Early Literacy
Interests: Early literacy, children’s literature, critical approaches to teaching and learning through poetry and literature, using found poetry in arts-based research writing, responsive literacy
Pinkerton is noted for her knowledge, experience and scholarship in children’s literature. She is an experienced teacher, a critical teacher educator and an active scholar. She has taught a variety of early childhood literacy courses, and most recently trained teacher leaders as an instructional specialist in Ohio State’s Reading Recovery program and trained literacy coaches and principals in the Literacy Collaborative program. An engaging speaker, she has presented at state, national international conferences. Several of her articles have appeared in practitioner journals. In 2018, she authored a chapter in Charlotte Huck's Children's Literature: A Brief Guide. Pinkerton received her PhD from Ohio State in education, with an emphasis on literature for children and young adults.
“I am passionate about literacy education and advocating for students' literacy rights,” Pinkerton said. “I am dedicated to fostering book joy in every teacher and student that I work with.”
Margaret “Charlie” Knerr
Clinical Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Science
Director, Ohio State Couple and Family Therapy Clinic
Interests: Training and supervising couple and family therapists; couples therapy, especially with those contemplating divorce or recovering from affairs; training non-profit executives in applying family therapy theories for systemic change
Courses: Practicum in Couple and Family Therapy (HDFS 8189)
Knerr joins the Human Development and Family Science faculty from her group private practice, where she is the clinical director, co-owner and founder since 2005. She is current chairwoman of the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board, which licenses and establishes practice standards for the 40,000 counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists in Ohio. Knerr was appointed to this board in 2012 by Gov. John Kasich.
Knerr will be a key member in developing a new accredited Couple and Family Therapy master’s degree program at The Ohio State University.
“The opportunity to collaborate with Suzanne Bartle-Haring, PhD, an expert in Bowen Family Systems Theory and Keeley Pratt, PhD, a pioneer in bringing medical family therapy to Ohio, as we develop this program was an opportunity I could not pass up,” Knerr said. “Couple and family therapists think systemically. Our goal is for our graduates to bring much needed systemic changes to family relationships but also to larger systems like social service agencies, educational systems, health care systems, religious communities, and even political systems.”
