Joy Anderson is a Philadelphia native and a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership division at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. She is a former elementary school teacher who has worked extensively to support the development of partnerships between school and community based organizations designed to improve community life. Her research interests include problem solving learning, teacher training (esp. inservice), school reform, and effective ways to support school leadership through the process of change. When away from Penn, she enjoys singing and touring with an all female gospel group called AGAPE.

email: joyous@dolphin.upenn.edu

Catrice Barrett is a doctoral student in the Educational Linguistics program at the University of Pennsylvania. Catrice is interested in issues concerning meta-linguistic awareness, language attitudes and identity among dialect-speaking students, namely speakers of AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) and CCE (Caribbean Creole English). On a global level, Catrice is interested in the spread of English through AAVE-influenced discourse. Along these lines, Catrice has begun exploring the process of hip-hop identity construction and its implications for the English language learning experience both inside and outside the classroom environment. Recently, she conducted a study on the effects of foreign participation in the construction of Chinese hip-hop identity. As a speaker of Spanish and English, Catrice has taught English as a Second Language largely to young Latino adults for the past three years. In a past life (that is, prior to formally pursuing studies in language education), Catrice earned a master's degree in Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a software engineer.

email: catpennalumni@gmail.com

Quinn Burke is a doctoral student in the Foundations and Practices in Education program.  His research interests include the use of virtual technology as a pedagogical tool as well as a variety of urban education initiatives, particularly those pertaining to charter school reform.   He is currently working with Dr. Yasmin Kafai, focusing on innovative ways to introduce middle school children to the basics of computer programming using game-making technology.   Prior to his studies at Penn, Quinn completed a MA in Comparative Literature at Columbia University and taught high school English for a number of years both at a Philadelphia charter school and at a private school in South Carolina.   

email: burkew@dolphin.upenn.edu

Scott Cody is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership whose interest is in the intersection of health, communities, and schools. In particular, he is investigating how community schools can act as a hub to provide social services, especially in mental health, for students and community members. While completing his Ed.M. at Harvard, Scott worked with Dr. Michael Nakkula on researching academic identity in the Early College High School model. Prior to arriving at Penn, Scott was a Literacy Coach for Los Angeles Education Partnership, a nonprofit that provides resources within schools and communities in L.A., and taught middle school for six years.

email: codys@gse.upenn.edu

Jeremy Cutler is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership.  Prior to coming to Penn, he was an elementary and middle school teacher, school counselor, and Dean of Students in Boston, MA and Washington, DC.  During the summer, Jeremy also directs an 8-week residential program for boys in Vermont.  Jeremy holds a masters in Urban Education from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree in English from Middlebury College. His research interests include the ways in which schools respond to and plan for students' social and emotional needs, as well as the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment.  Jeremy serves as a Penn Mentor for first-year TFA teachers, and is a research assistant at The Center for the Study of Boys and Girls Lives.

email: jcut@dolphin.upenn.edu

Mr. Gillis is a global performance, leadership and talent management consultant, complementing his diversified consulting experience with an MBA, and is currently a doctoral student in the Executive Program in Work-Based Learning Leadership at the Wharton School/Graduate School of Education. With a focus on strategic business value, Mr. Gillis builds collaborative business relationships with client executives to successfully deliever impacts to human capital. Mr. Gillis was a certified IBM management consultant in Strategic Change and Business Transformation, a human performance consultant with Accenture, Leadership Resources for Center for Creative Leadership, a Global Talent Management Consultant for Convergys, the Performance Consulting Practice Area Lead for Element K, and a Partner with First Order Consulting.

email: jgillis@dolphin.upenn.edu

Joan Buchanan Hill resides in Columbus, Ohio and is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.  Joan is the Director of Lower School at Columbus School for Girls, an independent day school.  She has taught elementary and middle school grade levels and held leadership positions in other independent schools in Ohio. She is researching ways to improve instruction in the areas of math, science and technology for girls.  Recently she conducted a study to understand the impact of higher level questioning by teachers on student achievement.  Additionally, she is involved in the Columbus community as a member of the YWCA Board of Trustees Governance Committee and a member of the Board of Trustees for Columbus College of Art and Design.  She and her husband Zachary have two adult children.

email: jhill@columbusschoolforgirls.org

Dan Lazar is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership division at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. He received his masters in Ed Leadership from Penn in the Spring of 2007. He currently is a Principal in Residence in Academy for Leadership in Philadelphia Schools, and is working at the AB Day School in North West Philadelphia. Prior to matriculating at Penn GSE, Dan was a classroom teacher in Oakland and San Francisco California, where he worked to bridge the home-school divide.  His research interests include parental involvement and the establishment of a positive, nurturing, safe and academically rigorous school climate and culture.  Outside of Penn, Dan is an avid runner and ultimate Frisbee player as well as a die-hard Red Sox and Patriots fan.  He also enjoys hanging out with his wife and one and a half year old son. 

email:djlazar@dolphin.upenn.edu

My name is Tara McGowan. I am a fourth year graduate student at GSE in Language and Literacy in Education. My research interests include picture-storytelling and multimodality, second-language acquisition and multiliteracies, performance studies and the ethnography of communication. I am also a professional storyteller and my book, The Kamishibai Classroom: Engaging Multiple Literacies through the art of "Paper Theater" (2010), was published by Libraries Unlimited in January.

email: tmcgowan@dolphin.upenn.edu

Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony is a doctoral student focusing on educational leadership.  Mike has spent the last ten years as a high school social studies and English teacher after earning a masters degree for GSE in 1999.  He possess an undergraduate degree in history and English from Georgetown University, where he once high-fived Alan Iverson and Bill Clinton during the same basketball season.  Currently, he is the social studies supervisor for the Lindenwold School District and a member of the Haddonfield Board of Education.  Mike’s interests center on the community school movement and notions of community ownership of community schools. 

email: manthony@lindenwold.k12.nj.us

Jesse Nickelson is a doctoral student in the Mid Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership and Organizational Managementat GSE. 

Jesse Nickelson serves as the Director of International Baccalaureate (IB) Programs for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS).  Mr. Nickelson had previously served as a teacher and the IB Diploma Programme Coordinator for The Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Nickelson has participated in Project Bridge (Korea), the Japan Fulbright Teacher Program, LearnServe Ethiopia, the U.S. China Discovery Program, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Master Teacher Program to bring his students closer to the world. Mr. Nickelson has served as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education, and the American University School of Education, Teaching, and Health. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Newseum and the Steering Committee for the D.C. Geography Alliance.

email: jesse.nickelson@gmail.com

Rachel Robinson is pursuing her doctorate in the Work-Based Learning Leadership Executive program offered by the Wharton School and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.   Rachel currently serves as the Director of Communication, Education and Training at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA)in Nashville, Tennessee.  HCA is one of the nation’s leading healthcare service providers, with 169 hospitals, 115 outpatient centers and more than 180,000 employees in the US and Great Britain. In her current position, she is responsible for directing the communication, education and training initiatives for HCA’s global Supply Chain division and overseeing HCA’s corporate university.   Her research interests include organizational development in healthcare, the effects of emotional intelligence on leadership, and the reasons why organizations need a Chief Learning Officer. In her spare time, she serves on the board of directors at Health Assist Tennessee and the Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Florida.  Rachel holds a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Conflict Resolution from Florida International University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising from the University of Florida.

email: rrobi@dolphin.upenn.edu

Charles Soriano is a doctoral student in the University of Pennsylvania’s program in educational and organizational leadership. He currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Schools in the East Hampton UFSD in East Hampton, NY. Charlie has held various administrative and instructional posts over the course of an 18-year career in K-12 public education. He earned an M.A. in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English and a second master’s degree from Rutgers University in educational leadership. His scholarly interests include board governance, practitioner research, international education and literacy, and his dissertation work focuses on how school board members understand their own governance practices. Charlie was the recipient of a Fulbright award for study abroad in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture and a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship.

email: sorianoc@dolphin.upenn.edu

Chris Soto is an Ed.D. student in the Foundations and Practices program at GSE. He counseled troubled teenagers for seven years prior to following his passion for adolescent well-being to Harvard University, where he received his Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology. Chris is generally interested in the role of emotion in middle school and high school systems. This interest subsumes specific areas like social-emotional learning programs for adolescents, student-teacher relationship training for school faculty, the relationship between emotions and classroom learning, and the use of the leadership role to create emotionally safe schools. He currently works as a school counselor at The Charter High School for Architecture and Design and as a research assistant at The Center for the Study of Boys and Girls Lives. He is also an instructor of Child and Adolescent Development for the Teach for America program and an editorial board member on the Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education Journal. Furthermore, he happens to think that his dog, Claire, is the coolest single thing on the planet.  

email: csoto@dolphin.upenn.edu

Chris is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership.  He grew up in central Pennsylvania but lived and taught in North Carolina and Florida for 5 years after receiving his BA in English from Penn State.  Chris is interested in studying alternatives to mainstream education, with a focus on the modern homeschooling movement and online learning communities.  His ultimate career goals are to find ways to provide homeschooling networks access to funding and resources, especially in lower SES areas.  He has taught students from 18 months to 18 years old, in private, public, and alternative schools.  Chris loves music and art, and works to incorporate those into his pedagogy often.

email: cst@gse.upenn.edu

Matt is a member of the Fall 2007 Educational Leadership Ed.D. cohort whose research interests include moral education and the implementation of character education and service-learning in public high schools.  He hopes to take his studies and the expertise of Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs to utilize social entrepreneurship as a vehicle for students to achieve a more just, loving and advanced society.

email: varga@dolphin.upenn.edu

Michael Werner is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.  He received his Masters in Educational Leadership from Penn in 1999, after student teaching at the Northeast High School in Philadelphia.  Prior to matriculation at Penn, Michael studied Pre-Medical Sciences at the Philadelphia University and worked as a Teaching Assistant in the Biology Department.   To date, he has been employed by the Upper Merion Area School District for eleven years where he teaches Introductory Biology and Advanced Placement (AP) Biology.   Michael’s research interests include the public school referendum process, the financing of school construction, and the integration of modern school design plans.  Outside of teaching science and writing his dissertation, Michael enjoys playing on an infallible defense in a men’s roller hockey league, watching the Philadelphia teams bring home Championship Titles, and of course, Michael cherishes sharing life’s highlight reel with his two biggest fans; his supportive wife, Lori and his beautiful daughter, Julia.

email: MWerner@umasd.org