Limarys Caraballo is joining the English Education program as an Associate Professor in the Department of Arts and Humanities. Caraballo comes to TC from Queens College, where she taught and served as co-director of the English Education program since 2013, and as Deputy Executive Officer in the Ph.D. Program in Urban Education at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Caraballo has also maintained an active role at TC since earning an Ed.D. from the Department of Curriculum & Teaching in 2012, serving as a Research Fellow with the Institute of Urban & Minority Education (IUME) and as founding co-director of the IUME’s Cyphers for Justice Program.
A former English teacher, Caraballo has focused her research on reframing deficit discourses around marginalized youth by amplifying their voices and identities while exploring the literacies leveraged by youth engaged in research and social action. Her work seeks to build upon youth’s critical epistemologies to transform and reimagine teacher preparation. The American Educational Research Association recognized her teaching and scholarship with a Division G (Social Context of Education) Early Career Award.
Caraballo is teaching doctoral and masters courses and seminars in English education and Curriculum and Teaching. She has a secondary appointment in the Department of Curriculum & Teaching and will continue her work with IUME as a faculty affiliate. Caraballo is also a Teacher Opportunity Corps faculty advisor in the Office of Teacher Education.
Pam Koch has been named TC’s Mary Swartz Rose Professor of Nutrition & Education. Koch (M.Ed. ’98, Ed.D ’00), who also heads the College’s Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, is the third faculty member to hold the esteemed position, and enters the role after serving as Associate Research Professor in the College’s Program in Nutrition. [Read more about Koch’s scholarship and appointment.]
Mary Mendenhall, who previously served as Associate Professor of Practice at the College, has been named an Associate Professor in the International & Comparative Education program.
A recognized leader in the research, training and support of teachers in refugee camps and under-represented nations, Mendenhall has gained acclaim in international circles for “Teachers for Teachers” — a multimodal teacher professional development initiative in a remote Kenyan refugee camp populated by over 175,000 men, women and children who have fled atrocities in nearby South Sudan and Somalia, among other countries in East Africa.
Her research takes place in camp, urban and resettlement settings around the world. Her report — “Urban Refugee Education: Strengthening Policies and Practices for Access, Quality and Inclusion,” co-led with Professor S. Garnett Russell — represented the first-ever in-depth study of urban refugee education and included Ecuador, Kenya and Lebanon.
She currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the European Union-funded project on education in Uganda and South Sudan, which entails a multi-year research study on teacher and learner well-being among refugee and displaced communities as part of an Oxfam-led consortium.
An active member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), Mendenhall leads the network’s Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative research initiative.
Her research focuses on teacher identity, teacher professional development, and teacher policies of both refugee and host community teachers in forced displacement settings, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mendenhall’s published work and findings can be found in refereed journal articles, peer-reviewed book chapters, reports and articles. One of her latest studies, “Teacher Professional Development & Play-based Learning in East Africa,” points the way for improving support to teachers of refugees in East Africa. Mendenhall has also been extensively involved with Columbia University’s Committee on Forced Migration.
In addition to the faculty appointments, Rachel Talbert has arrived at TC as a Minority Postdoctoral Fellow. Talbert comes to New York with a degree in Curriculum & Instruction from the George Washington University Graduate School of Education & Human Development.
Her research focuses on the civic identity of Indigenous youth attending urban public schools and how it supports efforts sustaining sovereignty and self-determination of tribes and nations. As Vice Chair of the Indigenous Education Community for the National Council on the Social Studies, Talbert concentrates on support for social studies teachers and Indigenous social studies education.
The TC Minority Postdoctoral Fellows program since 1996 has brought emerging scholars to TC for a year or more of research. Program alumni have gone on to prominence in business and academia.
This fall also marked the previously announced appointment of Hervé Varenne as the College’s Gardner Cowles Professor of Anthropology & Education. A defining scholar in the field of education anthropology, Varenne has served on the College’s faculty for nearly 50 years.