College welcomes 10 new faculty members for 2024-25 academic year
Shelby Cosner
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’05 in educational leadership and policy analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Job title and department: Morrill M. Hall Endowed Professor, Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy
Specialties: School leadership; equity-oriented school leadership; leadership for school improvement; the cultivation of organizational capacities that support school improvement; leadership preparation and development; design and testing of leadership development interventions; continuous improvement of leadership preparation programs
Before UGA: Cosner began her academic career at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) in 2005. As an assistant and associate professor at UIC, she co-led their nationally recognized principal preparation program. As a professor at UIC, she served as director of the Center for Urban Education Leadership. Prior to UIC, Cosner worked as a district-level leader and principal in Wisconsin.
Sarah Grace Hudspeth Dalton
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’19 in linguistics with an emphasis in speech and hearing sciences, University of New Mexico
Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education
Specialties: Aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders; cognition and cognitive communication disorders; aging and language; EEG methods; treatment adjuvants; discourse analysis
Before UGA: Dalton served as an assistant professor in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Marquette University.
Ginny Frederick
Terminal degree: Ph.D.’21 in kinesiology, University of Georgia
Job title and department: Clinical assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology
Specialties: Physical activity; sedentary behavior; sleep; and quality of life outcomes among college students
Before UGA: Prior to coming to UGA, Frederick was a project manager in the Physical Activity and Health branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a lecturer of exercise science at Kennesaw State University.
Oscar Jiménez-Castellanos
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’08 in education, Claremont Graduate University jointly with San Diego State University
Job title and department: Director, Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE); Goizueta Foundation Chair of Latino Teacher Education, Department of Language and Literacy Education
Specialties: Education policy; education finance; Latino education; bilingual education
Before UGA: Previously, Jimenez-Castellanos served as the Murchison Endowed Professor and Chair at Trinity University, associate professor and founding director of the Latinx Education Research Center at Santa Clara University, and associate and assistant professor at Arizona State University.
Jie (Jennifer) Lu
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’23 in educational technology, University of Florida
Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Workforce Education and Instructional Technology
Specialties: Design, development, and evaluation of emerging learning technology; instructional design and learning experience design; pre-service teachers’ AI literacy and competency
Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA, Lu was a teaching assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. Before her doctoral studies, she was a high school math teacher in Warren, Ohio and an instructional designer.
Amedee Martella
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’22 in cognitive psychology, Purdue University
Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology
Specialties: Instructional design; educational technology; STEM education; college teaching; the science of learning
Before UGA: Martella was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Carmen Pedersen
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’18 in family and consumer sciences education with an emphasis on human development and family sciences, Texas Tech University
Job title and department: Clinical assistant professor, Department of Workforce Education and Instructional Technology
Specialties: Family and consumer sciences education; career and technical education instructional strategies; career and technical student organizations and integration in career and technical education courses; career and technical education teacher shortage; career and technical education teacher pipeline; career and technical education teacher recruitment
Before UGA: For 11.5 years, Pedersen taught family and consumer sciences at the middle and high school levels in Georgia. Additionally, she served as a part-time graduate instructor in family and consumer sciences education at Texas Tech University.
Katherine (Katie) Sciurba
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’11 in English education, New York University
Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Language and Literacy Education
Specialties: Critical literacy; reading and relevance; intersections of literacy and identity; sociopolitical messaging in children’s literature (picture books); literacy and meaning-making; popular culture (music, comics, Disney, etc.) in education; representations of race, class, and gender in children’s literature
Before UGA: Sciurba was most recently an associate professor of literacy education and director of the San Diego State University Literacy Center at SDSU.
Morgan Tate
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’23 in educational theory and practice with a concentration in social studies education and a certificate in interdisciplinary qualitative studies, University of Georgia
Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy
Specialties: Ethics; land relations; artful inquiry; and qualitative methodology
Before UGA: For the past eight years, Tate worked as a public educator in the social sciences at the high school and collegiate levels in Georgia.
Haleigh Gray Taylor
Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’22 in health education and promotion, University of Alabama
Job title and department: Limited-term assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology
Areas of specialization: Aspects of mental health in sport, specifically athlete burnout and well-being; internal and external coping mechanisms such as grit and social support
Before UGA: Taylor worked as an assistant professor in the College of Health Science at Charleston Southern University where she taught in the athletic training and kinesiology programs for two years. Additionally, she served as the clinical education coordinator for the athletic training program. She worked as an athletic trainer while pursuing both her master’s and doctoral degrees.