Disability & Psychoeducational Studies (DPS)
- Transition Services: Researching how to improve transition services for individuals with extensive support needs, particularly regarding equity in employment and postsecondary opportunities.
Educational Policy Studies & Practice (EPSP)
- Higher Education: Analyzing issues related to access, equity, and success in higher education, with attention to P-20 education — the policies, practices, and pathways that connect K-12 education with postsecondary education, including community college transfer pathways.
Researcher Spotlight
Dr. Jameson D. Lopez (Educational Policy Studies & Practice) conducts research that reframes contemporary mainstream postsecondary persistence theories to better incorporate the factors that influence Native American postsecondary student persistence. As an Indigenous quantitative researcher with expertise in the limitations of collecting and applying quantitative results to Native American populations, he creates new concepts and measures that examine how governmental policies toward Native Americans have focused on the problematic goal of assimilation.
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Kirsten Lansey (she/her), Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of special education. Her overarching goal is to conduct research, teaching, and service that contributes to systemic educational change so that students with complex support needs receive inclusive and equitable learning opportunities that support them in reaching their goals. Dr. Lansey’s
current research focuses on identifying inequities in segregated educational placements of students with disabilities and intersecting identities through the exploration of multi-level factors.
View Dr. Lansey’s Bio Listen to Dr. Lansey’s Inquiry Oasis Interview
Dr. Tefera (she/her) is an associate professor of special education. Her interdisciplinary scholarship examines how educational policies aimed at improving equity among students at the intersections of race, disability, language, and other social categories are enacted, interrupted, and resisted by students, families, educators, and leaders. Her recent work explores how historical, sociocultural, and spatial contexts mediate how educators and leaders respond to and understand citations for racial disproportionality in the identification, placement, and discipline of students with disabilities.
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Dr. Leslie D. Gonzales serves as Professor of Higher Education, Department Head of Educational Policy Studies and Practices, and Director for the Study of Higher Education. As a working-class-Chicana-first-generation-college-student-turned academic, who earned all three academic degrees from Hispanic Serving Institutions, Gonzales is
committed to the advancement of inclusion and equity in higher education, generally, and in the context of the academic profession/academic labor more specifically. She seeks to do so through her 1) research, 2) her work in academic administration, and 3) through meaningful praxis, service, and partnership.
View Dr. Gonzales’s Bio Listen to Dr. Gonzales’s Inquiry Oasis Interview