As we move into a new year, the GSE community will welcome several new faculty members.

Dr. Yasmin Kafai comes to GSE from UCLA, where she was on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.  Dr. Kafai studies learning theories and technology; her most recent work, funded by the NSF, focuses on children’s learning as designers of games, simulations, and virtual worlds.  Born in Germany, Dr. Kafai studied at the Technische Universität Berlin and at Harvard University.  Dr. Kafai is studying daily life and learning opportunities in Whyville.net, a virtual world that is home to over 3.3 million players ages 8-16 years.  Dr. Kafai will join the FPE faculty.

Dr. Michael Nakkula, APHD’s first practice professor, comes to us from Harvard, where he co-directed Harvard GSE’s Risk and Prevention master’s program.  Dr. Nakkula’s teaching and research focus on the development of resilience and the promotion of possibility development among low-income children and youth. He is particularly interested in the integration of counseling, mentoring, and educational processes in urban schools.  Dr. Nakkula is now in the fifth year of a longitudinal study on the impact of Early College High Schools (which help urban high school students work toward an associate’s degree while earning their high school diploma) on students’ academic identity development and college success.

Dr. Diane Waff comes to GSE from Oakland, California, where she was a senior program associate at WestEd. A literacy educator, she works closely with secondary school teachers and community college professors to establish professional learning communities and habits of reflective practice that lead to innovations in curriculum and instruction. Her research focuses on how literacy-focused professional development for content-area teachers relates to changes in teacher practice and student outcomes. She has extensive experience as a high school teacher, district and building administrator, K-12 teaching and learning coordinator, and teacher researcher.

Dr. Caroline Watts has joined APHD as a lecturer.  Before coming to GSE, Dr. Watts was the founding director of the Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships Program, the community mental health outreach program of the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston.  Dr. Watts has 20 years of experience working in community and school settings to develop collaborative models for prevention and intervention services.  She has earned degrees from Yale and Harvard and is a former lecturer in Harvard GSE’s Risk and Prevention Program.  She has focused her work on building capacity in mental health and educational systems to serve the complex needs of urban children, youth, and families through creating innovative institutional partnerships among schools, universities, and community health organizations.