Linda L. Branch holds a dual Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Clarion University; she also holds both a Masters degree in Elementary Education and a reading specialist certification from Arcadia University.  She is currently (and has been for the past 11 years) employed as a Reading Specialist for the Pennridge School District in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. Prior to that she taught in the Strawberry Mansion area of the School District of Philadelphia for approximately six years: Seventh Grade, First Grade and Kindergarten, respectively. 
Linda is an Ed.D. student in the Reading/Writing/Literacy division in the Graduate School of Education and is in the final (FINALLY) stages of her program, after having completed her qualitative research study this past summer.  Her focus is on the exploration of emergent literacy practices, pedagogies and philosophies of the staff who offer Pre-Kindergarten programs in two privately-owned childcare centers, as they navigate towards the ever-increasing demands and academic accountability measures of this current political climate, while still dealing with the realities of limited funding, materials, training, not to mention the overall economic slump that affects teachers and parents alike. 
In the future, she hopes to use her expertise and education to support childcare centers and their efforts to provide quality, effective literacy educational opportunities on a larger level, as well as to support parent/center communication and to facilitate dialogue among those parties and their local school districts.  Another prime interest is the use of therapy dogs in classrooms to support and motivate struggling readers, as she has been doing with her Books N’ Barks program for the last seven years or so.

email: LBranch@pennridge.org

Ellie Fitts Fulmer, Ed.M., is a doctoral candidate in Reading/Writing/Literacy with anticipated graduation in 2012.  Her interests include multicultural education, teacher research, literacy education, and elementary science methods.  Currently she is a professional developer at the Da Vinci Science Center, and teaches courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Moravian College.  Since 1998, Ellie has worked for urban schools and organizations, including as a classroom teacher in Allentown, PA and Worcester, MA, and most recently as a mentor to Teach For America first-year teachers in the School District of Philadelphia.  Ellie serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Seven Generations Charter School. 

When she is not on campus or in the classroom, Ellie enjoys spending time outdoors with her son and husband in the Lehigh Valley.

email: elliefittsfulmer@hotmail.com

Greg Glasheen is a doctoral student in the Reading, Writing, and Literacy department of the Graduate School of Education. After graduating from Vanderbilt University in 2003, he taught elementary school in the Philadelphia area for three years. While teaching, Greg recognized the enormous challenges facing both students and teachers in an era of high-stakes testing, limited definitions of literacy, and teacher accountability. Consequently, his interests focus on alternative pedagogies that will both enable students to thrive in the current school culture and equip them with the thinking and literacy abilities necessary to maximize their agency as participants in a global and multicultural society.

email: glasheen@dolphin.upenn.edu

Lynnette Harris-Scott is currently  an Ed.D. student in the Reading, Writing and Literacy program.  Her career in education began in 1991 as a classroom teacher in Houston, Texas.  Four years later, she went on to pursue her master's degree in Speech-Language  Pathology and became a practicing clinician in the Boston Public Schools for nearly a decade.  Along the way she received an Ed.S. in Language and Literacy from Simmons College. Her interest in doctoral studies stemmed from her notice of a profound lack of engagement with  
school in general and literacy, in particular among her female students.  Her current research interests include exploring responsible womanhood through literacy in urban classrooms and  mentoring of first year teachers.

email: harrisL2@dolphin.upenn.edu

Sarah Hobson is a doctoral student in Drama and Writing for Social Change at the Graduate School of Education in Reading, Writing, and Literacy.

email: shobson@dolphin.upenn.edu

David Low is a Ph.D. student in the R/W/L program at Penn GSE, beginning his coursework here in 2010. His research interests include such old standards as learning and literacy, but through new lenses. Specifically, David is interested in how certain technologies foster the development of critical consciousness and creative problem solving skills when used in language arts classrooms. He’s also interested in the ways that multimodal (non-print-based) media shape and change the learning process by making it less linear, more exploratory, more student-centered, and more democratic.

Before attending GSE, David received degrees in English Education from The University of Arizona and New York University, and taught high school composition and literature in Tucson, Arizona. He has worked as a designer of educational video games, is a published cartoonist, and perhaps most importantly, is an avid baseball watcher.

email: davidlow@gse.upenn.edu

Vanessa J. Morris is an Ed.D. student with the Reading, Writing and Literacy program at GSE. She holds a master's degree in library science and worked with the Free Library of Philadelphia as an adult/teen librarian for 7 years. She now teaches graduate level library science courses with the Department of Library Science at Clarion University as well as facilitate teen book clubs and librarian professional development programs at libraries across the tri-state area. Her primary research interest is studying the literary and hermeneutical responses of inner-city Philadelphia teens reading the genre of street fiction. Vanessa's website is located at:
www.vanessajmorris.com.

email: vmorris@dolphin.upenn.edu