Doctoral Students

I am a part-time doctoral student in the department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, and currently work as the Assistant Director of a small, Pre-K-8 charter school with a social justice mission in CT. As this school is also a professional development school for pre-service teachers enrolled in the MAT program at Quinnipiac University, I also serve as an adjunct professor and teach several courses as part of our PDS collaboration, including Multiculturalism in the Classroom, and the Sixth Year School Administrator's Program's required course, Leading the Instructional Program. My dissertation is a theoretical engagement into the epistemological and ontological quagmire of the discourses and materialities constituting the categorical oppositions of White women teachers and Black male students. Engaging the complementary, supplementary and contradictory theoretical frames offered by feminist poststructural, new materialist, and women of color thought, the study is an engagement with post-qualitative research that seeks to explore Rosi-Bradotti's spaces "in-between" the certainty of identity categories that have proliferated in critical, multicultural and accountability discourses.

Email: mjn2132@tc.columbia.edu

Kelly Johnston is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching with a specialization in literacy. Kelly has been an instructor in the department for the past 3 years and was also an instructor for one semester at The City College of New York for the Childhood Education department. Before coming to Teachers College, Kelly earned a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Baylor University and a M.Ed. in Reading Education at Texas State University. Kelly also worked with middle school students and teachers as an interventionist and literacy coach. While at Teachers College, Kelly has been a department fellow and worked on two different research projects, including the Literacy Teachers Initiative (LTI) with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) which supported NYC public school teachers in conducting action research in their classrooms and qualitative research with faculty members in the literacy program. Kelly defended her dissertation proposal in December 2015 and hopes to graduate during the 2016-2017 academic year.

Email: kcj2117@tc.columbia.edu

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellycjohnston

Estrella Olivares-Orellana is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her scholarly interests are in the areas of bilingual and bicultural education, science education in bilingual settings and the academic experiences of immigrant students with interrupted schooling. Currently, she is also a part-time instructor in the department of Arts & Humanities at Teachers College and a full-time bilingual science teacher at a high school in the suburbs of New York. Estrella holds an Ed.M. in International Educational Development from Teachers College and a B.S. in Biochemistry from SUNY, Stony Brook. She is a native of Chile but lived many years in Argentina before migrating to the U.S. in 1994.

Email: elo2108@tc.columbia.edu

I am pursuing two questions at the intersections of education, anthropology, and philosophy. First, what is the education of those without education? In other words, what are the educations of those not enrolled in formal schooling and with what curriculum and pedagogy do they interact? Second, I am generally interested in how we learn to be things. Embedded in this second question, I see two components. How, in situated contexts, do we progressively learn skills or abilities? On a broader scale, how are we governed and how do we learn to embody and resist the subjectivities associated with jobs, titles, and other categories? To engage these questions, I draw on poststructural, postcolonial, and anarchist theories. I am particularly focused on Latin America, examining out of school educations/informal learning in the everyday practices and resistances of youth living in marginalized spaces.

Email: jc3759@tc.columbia.edu

Lindsay Mann taught kindergarten, second grade, and was an elementary school literacy specialist in a district outside of Detroit, Michigan before making the move to NYC to pursue her doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching. Her research interests focus on early literacy learning, and more specifically writing in kindergarten from a social-semiotic perspective. Her current work draws on tenants of postructuralism and spatial theory. Lindsay values the role that teacher inquiry plays in the classroom, and encourages teachers to be researchers in her role as a staff developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. She supports teachers and students in schools across NYC, throughout the country, and in Hong Kong as they engage in reading and writing workshop practices. She loves to learn, and therefore loves to teach.

Email: lm2804@tc.columbia.edu

Specialization: Curriculum Studies

Erica is a doctoral candidate and instructor in the department of Curriculum and Teaching. She currently teaches courses in theory, inquiry, and curriculum design for both preserivce and inservice teachers in the department of Elementary Inclusive Education. Her work is situated at the intersections of posthumanist theories of affect, preservice teacher education, and social justice pedagogy. Prior to coming to Teachers College, Erica worked as an elementary teacher in Kuwait and Indonesia. Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Erica studied Elementary Education, Spanish literature, and French language at Vanderbilt University and has an E.d.M. in Teaching and Learning from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

Email: eec2146@tc.columbia.edu

Tran is a doctoral candidate and full-time instructor in Curriculum and Teaching. She is a former school director and began teaching in 2000 with children and youth with special needs. She currently teaches courses in inquiry and curriculum in the department of Early Childhood Education. Her work is situated at the intersections of critical childhoods studies, curriculum, and visual sociology as she examines child- and teacher-produced images of children's schooling experiences and childhood.

Email: ttn2114@tc.columbia.edu

Jonthon Coulson taught high school ESL and English in the Bronx and Indonesia for a decade before matriculating to Teachers College. His experiences as an alumnus of Teach For America, Fulbright, and the U.S. State Department English Language Fellows programs are the basis for his research focus on the culturally hegemonic tendencies of national educational systems in post-colonial societies (such as America). Jonthon has been selected as the 2016 Institute of Current World Affairs fellow, and will spend his next two years investigating neoliberal incursions into Indonesian educative spaces, among other things.

Email: jonthon@gmail.com

Jessica is currently a 3rd year doctoral student in the C&T EdD program at TC. She also teaches full time as a middle school math teacher at Trinity School. Her research seeks to develop a better understanding of how shared office spaces might influence first year teachers' experiences in secondary schools.

Email：jbs2223@tc.columbia.edu

Jennifer Dauphinais is an early career scholar interested in race-conscious teacher identity and curriculum research. She is a former New Haven Public School teacher and district leader for developing teacher career pathways. Jennifer holds several certifications and training backgrounds in Mindfulness, Yoga and Social Emotional Learning. In 2017, she received a Dean's Grant for Student Research at Teachers College. Her work has been published in Education Week, Teachers College Record, Youth Today, and TC Public Space. She is currently developing programs for teacher self-care and student wellness in the Masters of Art in Teaching program at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

Email：jcd2198@tc.columbia.edu

Website: https://jcdauphinais.wordpress.com

Cathlin Goulding is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum & Teaching. Her research focuses on place, pedagogy, and historical violence. Prior to coming to Teachers College, she worked as a tenth grade English and poetry teacher at Newark Memorial High School, a public school in the East San Francisco Bay Area. She studied Literature/Writing at the University of California, San Diego and has an M.A. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley's MUSE (Multicultural Urban Secondary English) program. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy, The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, Hyphen, and (Re)Constructing Memory: Education, Identity and Conflict.

Email: cbg2121@tc.columbia.edu

Website: tc.academia.edu/cathlingoulding

As a research assistant for a center focusing on design thinking, school change, and technology, I interview and observe in schools and analyze data on professional development. We are currently completing an NSF-funded project on role of facilitators in professional development. I am also conducting a qualitative study on prospective teachers’ negotiation of teacher subjectivities in an alternative certification program.

Email: sam2327@tc.columbia.edu

Natalie is a Ph.D student in the department of Curriculum and Teaching. Her focus is on Early Childhood Education and she holds a specialization in Teacher Education. Natalie's research is grounded in culturally responsive pedagogy for both teachers and students. She also blogs for the Huffington Post Education section and holds a position with the Teachers College Student Senate.

Email: nyf2104@tc.columbia.edu

Alyson Rumberger is doctoral student and research assistant at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her doctoral work focuses on the intersection of literacy and identity, and seeks to look at the potential of non-classroom spaces in schools for rich literacy learning. Alyson is also a recipient of the Evalyn Milman Fellowship, where she consults with a local public school to support K-2 teachers in developing inquiry-based social studies curricular units. In addition to her doctoral work, Alyson teaches graduate-level courses in literacy and children’s literature, presents at academic conferences, and supervises literacy specialist interns. Before coming to Teachers College, Alyson taught primary grades outside of Seattle, Washington.

Email: atr2125@tc.columbia.edu 

Specialization: Curriculum Studies (Literacy, Teacher Education, Urban and Multicultural Education)

Crystal Chen is a doctoral candidate who studies literacy, teacher education, and urban and multicultural education. She is currently writing her dissertation, "Critical Literacy as Common Ground: The Possibilities of African Immigrants Girls in New York City Public Schools and Community-Based Organizations" under the advisement of Professor Knight-Manuel, and was the recipient of the Dean's Research Dissertation Fellowship Award. At TC, Crystal works as a research fellow in the Office of Teacher Education, an instructor in the Literacy Specialist program, and a lead professional development coach. Crystal began her teaching career as a high school English teacher, and received her B.A. in English and her M.Ed. in English Education from Rutgers University. In addition, Crystal was an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University and has policy experience working in human rights and the United States Congress. She has published in the International Journal of Educational Research, Educational Leadership Review, and has presented her research in multiple conferences.

Email: cc3468@tc.columbia.edu

I am studying for a doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching while working full time on the design and teaching faculty of a new graduate school of education in NYC. I am interested in teacher education, and in particular would like to study how new teachers' beliefs about learning affect their instructional choices.

Email: cje2120@tc.columbia.edu

Sarah is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. With an art history background and years teaching middle school and high school humanities, her interests lie in literacy across the disciplines, arts-integrated and interdisciplinary learning, and curriculum design and enactment. At Teachers College, she has worked on the Publishing and Content Team at EdLab and served on Student Senate as the Doctoral Representative for the Dept of C&T.

Email: smg2174@tc.columbia.edu

Specialization: Gender and Education; History of Education; Religious Literacies; South Asia

Shenila Khoja-Moolji is a research fellow and doctoral candidate at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Her research interests include investigating the entanglement of education with practices of power, the constructions of Muslim femininities and masculinities, and epistemologies of the global South. Shenila also serves as an Education Affiliate with the Religious Literacies Project at Harvard University. Her work has appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (in press); Gender and Education; Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education; Feminist Teacher; Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education; and Journal of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as well as in the form of several book chapters. In relation to public scholarship, Shenila has consulted with BBC Persia and The Huffington Post (Religion), and published in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Email: ssk2143@tc.columbia.edu

Tara is a PhD candidate in the department of Curriculum and Teaching and the recipient of the 2015-2016 Harry Passow Fellowship in Curriculum and Teaching. She situates her work in the field of critical disabilities studies. Areas of interest include: the overrepresentation of minority students in special education; ability and special education as legitmized exclusion mechanisms in schools; intersections between race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability; and how difference is socially constructed. She currently works as a research assistant in the department of Education Policy and Social Analysis and and also served as the teaching assistant for the research methodology section of the doctoral seminar in Curriculum and Teaching. Before starting her work at Teachers College, Tara taught music for students in grades K-8 in North Philadelphia.

Email: tes2133@tc.columbia.edu

Karishma Desai is a doctoral candidate in the department of Curriculum and Teaching. Drawing on strands of anthropology, feminist theory, comparative education, and curriculum studies, her research pursues the politics of knowledge in educational spaces. Karishma holds a decade of experience as a elementary and middle school teacher, school administrator, professional development consultant, and teacher educator in the United States and international contexts.

Email: khd2112@tc.columbia.edu

Mary Ann completed her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from India and an M.A. in Child Studies from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She trained as a teacher in India and worked as a school teacher and a teacher educator in India. Her dissertation examines the Student Police Cadet program implemented in government schools across Kerala, India with a focus on conceptions of child-as-citizen and school-community relations. Areas of interest include childhood studies, gender, citizenship, ethnography, teacher education, postcolonialism and education. She currently serves as Doctoral Peer Mentor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching.

Email: mac2322@tc.columbia.edu