John D. Akins

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’21 in kinesiology with a focus on applied physiology, University of Texas at Arlington
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology
  • Specialties: Exercise physiology; cardiovascular function; autonomic function; blood pressure regulation; women’s health; aging
  • Before UGA: Akins was a postdoctoral researcher for five years at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (IEEM), a joint venture between the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. During his time at IEEM, Akins studied autonomic-cardiovascular regulation of blood pressure in older women with hypertension, women during pregnancy, and adults with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Thomas Albright

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’21 in social justice education, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Job title and department: Limited-term assistant professor, Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education
  • Specialties: Teacher education; curriculum theory; teacher residencies; social studies education; qualitative and posthumanist inquiry; critical youth studies; democratic entanglements and third-space education; critical methodologies; school-university-community partnerships; social justice education
  • Before UGA: Prior to coming to the University of Georgia, Albright was at Georgia State University for five years, first as a postdoctoral research fellow, and then as a research assistant professor and director of research for a large-scale, grant-funded teacher residency program.

Lydia Buki

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’95 in counseling psychology, Arizona State University
  • Job title and department: Professor, Department of Counseling and Human Development Services
  • Specialties: Health literacy; cultural schema; psychosocial and structural determinants of physical and mental health in marginalized populations; psycho-oncology; identity development in cancer survivors
  • Before UGA: Buki previously held tenure-track positions at Colorado State University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and University of Miami.

Dominique Calandrillo

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’22 in audiology, Gallaudet University
  • Job title and department: Clinical assistant professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education
  • Specialties: Cochlear implants; electrophysiology, specifically cortical auditory evoked potentials; aural rehabilitation; tinnitus
  • Before UGA: Calandrillo was previously a clinical audiologist at the Center for Hearing and Communication in New York City, an adjunct assistant professor at the City University of New York-Queens College, and an investigator for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing exploring the effect of auditory cognitive training with older adult cochlear implant users.

Kayla Flanagan

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’20 in science education, University of Georgia
  • Job title and department: Academic professional associate, Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education; Office of Information Technology
  • Specialties: Educational technologies; using games/play to engage students in science/STEM learning; interdisciplinary science teaching, literacy, and pedagogy
  • Before UGA: Flanagan was a middle school science teacher in Florida for three years, a high school science teacher in Oconee County for two years, and assistant to the director of innovation in the Office of Information Technology for two years.

Abraham E. Flanigan

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’18 in psychological studies in education with a focus on developmental and learning sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology
  • Specialties: Interplay among mobile technology (e.g., smartphones and AI), self-regulated learning, and the motivation to learn, and how these relationships vary across cultures
  • Before UGA: Prior to coming to UGA, Flanigan was a tenured associate professor in Georgia Southern University's College of Education. Prior to joining Georgia Southern, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University.

Edmund Hamann

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’99 in education, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
  • Job title and department: Donna Alvermann Professor of Social Change, Department of Language and Literacy Education; associate director, Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education
  • Specialties: Anthropology of education; comparative education; education policy; ESL/bilingual education; migration studies; school reform
  • Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA, Hamann was the Charles Bessey Professor of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a research and evaluation specialist with the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University. He began his career leading an experimental bilingual family literacy program with the National Council of La Raza and wrote his dissertation about Dalton, Georgia’s educational response to rapid growth in its Latino/a/x enrollment in the 1990s.

Lisa Hamilton-Rajaram

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’26 in educational theory and practice, teacher education, University of Georgia
  • Job title and department: Limited-term instructor, Department of Educational Theory and Practice
  • Specialties: Feminist-oriented teacher education; teachers’ working lives; teachers’ experiences navigating neoliberal education policy; pre-service teacher identity development
  • Before UGA: Prior to her doctoral work at UGA, Hamilton-Rajaram was an assistant principal in New York City and a public-school teacher in Metro Atlanta. Before working in schools, she was an education facilitator at the Smithsonian American History Museum in Washington, D.C.

Kiana Hines

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’24 in communication sciences and disorders, Florida State University
  • Job title and department: Limited-term clinical assistant professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education
  • Specialties: Reading and writing development in culturally linguistically diverse school-aged children; developing assessments and measurement tools that better differentiate language disorder from language difference; creation of equitable, asset-based interventions that support language and literacy development in children from culturally linguistically diverse populations; incorporation of AI in writing sample analysis of children from culturally linguistically diverse populations
  • Before UGA: Before coming to UGA, Hines was a postdoctoral research fellow at Michigan State University from 2024-26, was a research consultant for the Michigan Department of Education, and was a speech-language pathologist in the public school and private practice sector.

Anthony Ilobinso

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’26 in curriculum and instruction with a focus on learning design, and technology, Purdue University
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Workforce Education and Instructional Technology
  • Specialties: AI and emerging technologies in STEM and biology education (AR, VR, and game-based learning); teacher preparation and professional development (technology integration and competency-based models); science learning beyond the classroom (informal science education, scientific literacy, and socio-scientific reasoning); educational systems and STEM capacity development (systems thinking and workforce development)
  • Before UGA: Prior to UGA, Ilobinso was a science and biology teacher, technology integration specialist, school administrator and principal, and accreditation officer and visitor for an international K-12 accreditation agency in international K-12 schools, as well as a blended and online teaching licensure program specialist and instructional designer.

Pei-Jung Li

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’25 in qualitative and quantitative research methodology, Indiana University Bloomington
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy
  • Specialties: Qualitative research methodology; creative inquiry; research ethics; cross-cultural and cross-lingual qualitative studies; digital tools in qualitative inquiry; educational research; international students in higher education
  • Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA, Li worked as a qualitative methods consultant at the School of Education and the Social Sciences Research Commons at Indiana University. She also served as a MAXQDA trainer.

A.J. Naatz

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’26 in special education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education
  • Specialties: Inclusive education; educational technology; AI; teacher development and training; evidence-based practices for students with extensive support needs
  • Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA and his doctoral studies at UW, Naatz spent three years as a public-school special education teacher for students with extensive support needs in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. Before that, he worked for several nonprofits supporting adults with moderate to severe disabilities through job coaching and respite care.

Bev Rosario-Williams

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’24 in health psychology and clinical science, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Counseling and Human Development Services
  • Specialties: Youth suicide prevention; family-based interventions; digital health interventions; emotion regulation
  • Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA, Rosario-Williams completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Margaret Vaughn

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’10 in curriculum and instruction with a focus on literacy, University of North Carolina Greensboro
  • Job title and department: Connally Family Distinguished Professor of Literacy, Department of Language and Literacy Education
  • Specialties: Supporting skilled and agentic readers and writers in elementary and middle school; student agency; adaptive teaching; literacy teacher education and development
  • Before UGA: Prior to UGA, Vaughn served as a full professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington.

Sophie Waller

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’23 in sports pedagogy, University of Georgia
  • Job title and department: Lecturer, Department of Kinesiology
  • Specialties: Physical education teacher education; instructional technology in PE; online physical education
  • Before UGA: Waller has been at UGA since her master's degree program. Previously, she worked as a limited-term assistant professor in the health and physical education program.

Gary W. Wright, III

  • Terminal degree: Ph.D. ’23 in learning and teaching in STEM with a focus on science education, North Carolina State University
  • Job title and department: Assistant professor, Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education
  • Specialties: Justice-oriented science education; gender and sexual diversity-inclusive science education; curriculum development; science teacher professional development; science teacher education and preparation
  • Before UGA: Prior to joining UGA, Wright spent three years as an assistant professor of science education at the University of Missouri, following a postdoctoral appointment at North Carolina State University. Before entering higher education, he taught middle and high school science in formal and informal settings for three years in North Carolina communities.