Building a Research Culture

Friday, May 4, 2018

The Oklahoma State University College of Education, Health and Aviation is committed to building and strengthening its research culture through strategic initiatives that support and highlight faculty research endeavors. On May 3, the college hosted a special reception to honor 23 faculty members as Distinguished Researchers from all four schools within the college.

“We have excellent researchers, and our faculty members are recognized regionally, nationally and internationally for their scholarship,” said Bert Jacobson, associate dean for research, engagement and administration. “Hopefully, recognizing them in this way will illuminate their efforts and create awareness of the exceptional work being done in our college. We look forward to building on this event and other research programs.”

In March, EHA announced Dr. Tim Baghurst and Dr. Guoping Zhao as Research Fellows. Their role is to mentor, encourage and support faculty in their research efforts as well as foster research collaboration among faculty, students and the university. The college has also implemented a Summer Grant Writing Support program, which will fund one month summer salary for 11 faculty members so they can focus solely on grant writing and eventual submission to a funding agency. Additionally, Dr. Julie Croff was recognized at the university level with the 2018 President’s Fellows Faculty Research Award for her research on measuring health behaviors among adolescent girls.

2018 EHA Distinguished Researchers:

School of Teaching, Learning and Educational Sciences

• Dr. Julie Angle, Associate Professor, Secondary Science Education
  Strengthening science teachers’ science literacy skills, including mentored STEM research experiences for in-service and preservice science teachers.
• Dr. Jennifer Cribbs, Assistant Professor, Mathematics Education
  Mathematics identity and student persistence in STEM as well as the professional growth of preservice and in-service teachers in mathematics and science.
• Dr. Gary Duhon, Associate Professor, School Psychology
  The development, evaluation and refinement of academic and behavioral interventions for children.
• Dr. Toni Ivey, Associate Professor, Science Education
  Investigating the impacts of STEM professional development for teachers and science learning of students.
• Dr. Juliana Utley, Professor, Mathematics Education
  Preservice and in-service teacher beliefs, efficacy and knowledge and STEM education.
• Dr. Sheri Vasinda, Associate Professor, Literacy Education
  Supporting struggling readers and writers through purposeful pairings of new technology tools with strong traditional literacy strategies to amplify the effects of both.
• Dr. Hongyu Wang, Professor, Curriculum Studies
  Nonviolence and mindfulness curriculum, international curriculum dialogues, transforming the inner landscape of personhood in curriculum, cultural diversity education and college curriculum and teaching.
• Dr. Shelbie Witte, Associate Professor, Secondary Literacy Education
  Themes related to 21st century literacies and multimodal approaches to adolescent literacy learning, particularly the intersection of these literacies and literacy pedagogy.

School of Kinesiology, Applied Health and Recreation

• Dr. Jason DeFreitas, Assistant Professor, Health and Human Performance
  How the brain controls movement and how that control system changes with aging, training, fatigue and disease as well as sensory information and motor behavior.
• Dr. Nathaniel Jenkins, Assistant Professor, Health and Human Performance
  Understanding the acute and chronic physiological responses to exercise and nutritional interventions in a variety of conditions across the human lifespan.

School of Community Health Sciences, Counseling and Counseling Psychology

• Dr. Al Carlozzi, Professor, Counseling and Counseling Psychology
  Helping transgender and gender nonconforming persons and their families
• Dr. Tonya Hammer, Assistant Professor, Counseling and Counseling Psychology
  Development of Relational Cultural Theory, including women’s issues, LGBTQ+ populations, body image and disordered eating.
• Dr. Sue Jacobs Professor, Counseling and Counseling Psychology
  Diversity and social justice issues.
• Dr. Diane Stutey, Assistant Professor, Counseling and Counseling Psychology
  Examining non-cognitive life stressors that impact children and adolescents in the school setting, such as grief and loss, sibling abuse and teen dating violence

School of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Aviation

• Dr. Tutaleni Asino, Assistant Professor, Educational Technology
  Diffusion of innovations in education and exploring research phenomenon through a comparative international lens, including emerging technologies in education.
• Dr. Lucy Bailey, Associate Professor, Social Foundation
  Interdisciplinary scholarship focused in two trajectories: theorizing and undertaking qualitative methodologies and a range of contemporary and historical diversity issues, including equity in STEM.
• Dr. Benjamin Bindewald, Assistant Professor, Social Foundations
  Tolerance and justice in education within the context of pluralist, democratic societies as well as the role of religion in public schools and the philosophical foundations of social research.
• Dr. Ki Cole, Assistant Professor, Research, Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics
  Processes and procedures of measuring unobservable constructs, such as knowledge, stress and spiritual maturity.
• Dr. Sarah Gordon, Assistant Professor, Research, Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics
  Program evaluation, effective assessment practices in higher education and diversity as a concept and learning outcome in higher education.
• Dr. Jon Loffi, Assistant Professor, Aviation and Space
  Unmanned Aerial Systems (USAS), aviation security, aviation terrorism and homeland defense and security.
• Dr. Penny Thompson, Assistant Professor, Educational Technology
  How media affects thinking and learning, including the cognitive aspects of technology use and learning in formal and informal online environments.

For additional photos from this event please visit the College of Education, Health and Aviation's Flickr page.