Education

Clinical Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Administration

Dr. Jarpe-Ratner’s qualitative and mixed methods applied research focuses on evaluating policy and systems changes that address social and structural determinants of health in order to promote health equity. She takes an intentional approach to collaboration with agency partners within governmental public health, early childhood and K-12 education, child welfare, health care, and community-based organizations. Current evaluation projects include: school-based policy implementation to promote child and adolescent health; policy, systems and environmental change initiatives to address precarious work; and community health planning and improvement.

Associate Professor, History

Dr. Todd-Breland’s research focuses on 20th-century United States urban and social history, African American history, and the history of education. She is working scholars, organizers, and survivors in the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Oral History Project to create an oral history project addressing the legacies of racialized torture against Black Chicagoans and they hope that this liberatory memory project will empower other communities to engage with reparations policy as a transformative means to address state violence.

Associate Professor, Special Education

Dr. Waitoller’s research focuses on urban inclusive education. His research agenda has two strands: teacher learning for inclusive education and market-driven educational policies. He is currently researching how Black and Latinx parents of students with disabilities engage with and experience school choice policies.

Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. Gregory Larnell’s research and teaching interests center on mathematics education and urban education—specifically, mathematics learning and curriculum; urban mathematics education; and race, identity, and inequity in mathematics education. Dr. Larnell’s research includes studies of knowledge production in mathematics education, mathematics remediation, the role of mathematics in school and grade-level transitions, the relation between mathematics and social justice, and the theorization of urban mathematics education.

Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. Mawhinney’s research focuses on the professional lives of urban teachers and pre-service teachers (with a specific focus on teachers of color), the schooling experiences of urban youth, and autoethnographic approaches in educational settings. Most recently, she published the book There Has to be a Better Way: Lessons from Former Urban Teachers.

Associate Professor, Educational Psychology

Dr. Humphries’ research seeks to develop an integrated approach to studying African American children’s normative and prosocial development. Specifically, Dr. Humphries examines African American children’s emotional and social competence, and the ways in which schools can support this development. This work also includes the development of a social emotional learning training curriculum centered on racial identity for preservice elementary and school social work interns to prepare them to better serve their racially and ethnically diverse students.

Associate Professor, Social Foundations of Education

Nicole Nguyen’s most recent research examines how current national security policies mobilize social service providers as terrorist watchdogs and intensify the criminalization of Muslim youth. She is author of A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in US Public Schools (2016) and Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (2019).

Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. Morales’ research focuses on the linguistic practices of Latinx bilinguals, the language ideologies of multilingual immigrant communities, and bilingual education policy. She is a teacher educator preparing pre-service and in-service teachers to work with emergent bilingual students and their families. Dr. Morales is a co-editor of the book, Transforming Schooling for Second Language Learners: Theoretical Insights, Policies, Pedagogies, and Practices by Information Age Publishing. She coordinates the Bilingual and ESL endorsement at UIC.

Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology

Dr. Coba-Rodriguez uses diverse qualitative data collection strategies (i.e., in-depth interviewing, photo-elicitation interviewing, participant observation, and naturalistic observation) and a family resilience approach to emphasize families’ strengths and cultural resources as they promote their young children’s successful transition to kindergarten. Dr. Coba-Rodriguez’ research presents a more complex and dynamic picture of low-income racially-and-linguistically diverse families.