2023 Early Career Faculty Workshop

Dr. Gansemer-Topf is a professor of higher education and also serves as the Director of Graduate Education for the School of Education and a faculty affiliate for the scholarship of teaching and learning at Iowa State’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. She worked in student affairs and as an adjunct instructor before transitioning into a faculty role. Her research interests focus on college student success and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Dr. Bukoski (she/they) teaches a wide range of courses related to higher education, research, and doctoral socialization and success. Involved in service at multiple levels, from programmatic and departmental service to professional organizations and journals, she centers social justice in all her work to support people and create more inclusive and liberatory educational spaces. Dr. Bukoski’s research uses critical theories and qualitative methods to understand the intersectional lived experiences of marginalized faculty, staff, and students with an aim to inform more equitable, inclusive, and just policies and programs.

Dr. Porter is the Associate Dean in the Graduate College and Associate Professor in Higher Education Administration & Student Affairs at Kent State University. As a leader, teacher, and scholar, she is guided by an equity-minded, collaborative, engaged, and critical praxis. Her areas of expertise include: (1) policies and practices that influence the trajectory of Black women in higher education; (2) student development at the intersections of identities; and (3) theory, research, and praxis in higher education (how and why we do what we do). She has been nationally recognized for her scholarship, teaching, and service, and her work appears in various peer reviewed journals and edited texts.

Leonard is an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs, and Director of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) at Indiana University. His scholarship is focused on investigating and improving how student success commitments are enacted at higher education institutions. Through research, teaching, and consulting he works to understand and interrogate how administrators, faculty and staff members, and other post-secondary stakeholders use research, data, and promising practices to enhance post-secondary outcomes. His work has been funded through the National Science Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, College Student Educators International (ACPA), as well as other national and local entities.

Zoë facilitates graduate courses in higher education with special focus on community colleges, and serves as the Co-Director of the Community College Leadership Development Consortium. Her professional experiences of 14+ years include multiple roles in two very different community college districts, as well as state level work designing and implementing policy impacting community college student access, retention, and success.

Christina W. Yao, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Program Coordinator for the Higher Education and Student Affairs Master’s program at the University of South Carolina. She is a qualitative researcher who primarily studies student engagement and learning in higher education. She operationalizes her research focus through three connected topical areas, including: international student mobility, scholar-practitioner preparation, and transnational education.

Tamara Bertrand Jones, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Associate Director for the Center for Postsecondary Success at Florida State University. She uses qualitative methods and critical and Black feminist theories to examine how the sociocultural contexts of education influence the intersectional experiences of historically underrepresented populations, particularly Black women, in academia. Her previous work as an higher education administrator and program evaluator also shapes her research on culturally responsive assessment and evaluation and leadership. Dr. Bertrand Jones scholarship and praxis has broad implications for recruitment, retention, advancement, and professional development of emerging scholars in higher education.

Claudia is a Mexican immigrant, LatinaMamíScholar, and former first-in-family and first-generation college student. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary in nature as she engages topics of Latinidad, LatinX identity development, education equity, culture, race, and ethnic identity development. She seeks to disrupt negative stereotypes about LatinXs, minoritized populations, and underrepresented college students through the critical incorporation of culturally appropriate, asset-based methodological approaches. Her research centers on disrupting the racialization and homogenization of the U.S. LatinX population by underscoring intragroup racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

Vijay Kanagala (Ph.D., Iowa State University) is an Associate Professor of Secondary and Higher Education and teaches in the Higher Education in Student Affairs Program at Salem State University. A former student affairs practitioner with extensive experience in multicultural student affairs, social justice education, and diversity programming and training, Kanagala’s research engages with three critical areas of higher education namely: 1) college access and success of first-generation, limited-income students, 2) collegiate experiences of students of color, and 3) employing spirituality and contemplative education/pedagogy in higher education. He has successfully secured over $4 million in funding for several major educational research projects.

Dr. Ken Schneck is a tenured professor of education at Baldwin Wallace University and the co-director of the Leadership in Higher Education M.A.Ed. program. He teaches courses in ethical leadership, diversity in higher education, student development theory, and public policy. He previously served as a Dean of Students for over a decade. Schneck is the author of three LGBTQ+ history books and is a nationally-recognized journalist. He currently serves as the editor of The Buckeye Flame, Ohio’s only LGBTQ+ newsroom. For this work, he was awarded with the 2021 Sarah Pettit Award for National LGBTQ Journalist of the Year.

Brian A. Burt, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis department in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Burt also serves as Director and Chief Research Scientist in the Wisconsin's Equity & Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB). He has received numerous awards recognizing his scholarship including the National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award, National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and Wickenden Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. Dr. Burt studies the experience of graduate students and the institutional policies and practices that influence students’ pathways. His research falls into two strands: understanding team-based research experiences and exploring the experiences of underrepresented graduate students of color in engineering. Through his work, Dr. Burt seeks to provide new ways to understand science participation and the experiences that might attract students to or turn them away from science pathways.

Mark’s research focuses on community college student success and workforce education, and he currently leads a team capturing the experiences of vertical transfer students in North Carolina with support from the John M. Belk Endowment. Mark also co-leads a national project on noncredit education funded by NSF and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to joining the Charlotte faculty in 2009, Mark served for 15 years in a variety of roles in university enrollment management and community college and state system leadership. He is past-president of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges and former Associate Editor of Community College Review.

Dr. Hyun Kyoung Ro is an associate professor of Higher Education in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at the University of North Texas. Her research expertise includes gender and racial equity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM); learning experiences and outcomes among marginalized college students; and critical quantitative research and assessment. She has received multiple external grants totaling $1.8 million from the National Science Foundation for research on Latinx engineering students at a Hispanic Serving Institution and an ADVANCE grant to study faculty gender equity. She has co-edited the books Voices from the Margins: Creating Inclusive Assessment for Marginalized Students in Higher Education (2020) and Gender Equity in STEM in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Policy, Institutional Culture, and Individual Choice (2021). Dr. Ro's research initiatives aim to tackle the experiences and outcomes of underserved and minoritized students using asset-based approaches in quantitative studies. She achieves this by either collecting survey data or analyzing existing secondary data.

Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn, Ph.D., (Kiowa/Umatilla/Nez Perce/Apache/Assiniboine) is Professor and Department Chair for the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies for the University of Oklahoma. She is currently serving as a Board Member for the Association for the Study of Higher Education and is the first Native American to serve in this role. She has received the Bobby Wright Award for Early Career Contributions to Research in Indigenous Education through the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Special Interest Group for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2018 and the Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research Award from the AERA in 2022. Dr. Minthorn is also the co-editor of Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education published by Routledge Educational Leadership Research Series, Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education and Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy published by Rutgers University Press and Unsettling Settler Colonial Education: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model published by Teachers College Press.