Meet the New Faculty

Please join the HGSE community in welcoming the following new faculty members to our ranks.

Jack Shonkoff, former dean of Brandeis's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, has joined Harvard as the Julius B. Richmond FAMRI Professor of Child Health and Development at HGSE and the Harvard School of Public Health. Shonkoff directs the new university-wide Center on the Developing Child.

Hiro Yoshikawa has joined the faculty as a tenured professor. Yoshikawa, who previously served as a professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, focuses his research on the development of young children in immigrant families, and the effects of public policies on children's development.

Thomas Payzant, Ed.D.'68, has joined the faculty as a senior lecturer. Payzant, the former superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, will focus his time with students and faculty interested in urban school district reform; leadership; and ways to connect research, policy, and practice in urban school districts.

Hunter Gehlbach has joined HGSE as an assistant professor of education. His interests include applying research and theory from social psychology to the classroom.

Tina Grotzer, Ed.D.'93, principal investigator on science education at Project Zero, has become assistant professor of education. Her current research investigates how causal concepts and assumptions about the nature
of causality impact students' ability to learn complex science concepts.

Monica Higgins will join the HGSE faculty in January 2007 as an associate professor of education. She is currently an associate professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. Higgins' research interests are centered on leader development.

Janice Jackson, Ed.D.'01, has returned to the Ed School as a lecturer on education and senior associate for the Executive Leadership Program for Educators at Harvard University in Association with The Wallace Foundation.

Matthew Jukes has joined the International Education Program as an assistant professor. His research areas include HIV/AIDS education and prevention in Kenya, improving access and quality of primary education, and educational benefits of treating health problems in preschool- and school-aged children through projects based in India, Kenya, Tanzania, and Gambia.

James S. Kim, Ed.D.'02, will join HGSE in January 2007 as an assistant professor of education. His recent research includes the use of quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness of compensatory education policies for disadvantaged students and the impact of reading programs on adolescent learning.

Pamela Mason, M.A.T.'70, Ed.D.'75, has joined HGSE as a lecturer on education and director of the Language and Literacy Program. Mason has worked in many Massachusetts public schools as a language-arts coordinator, an elementary program coordinator for reading and language arts, and an elementary school principal.

We are also pleased to welcome three new postdoctoral fellows:

Sylvia Epps has begun work with Dean McCartney and Professor Hiro Yoshikawa as a Harvard postdoctoral fellow on education. Her primary research interests center around the social contexts in which low-income children spend their time.

Jal Mehta has begun work as a Harvard postdoctoral fellow on education, working with Anrig Professor Richard Elmore. Mehta studies the political forces driving changes in American education policy and the consequences of these changes for practice.

Jennifer Thomson has begun work as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer on education in the Language and Literacy Program and the Mind, Brain, and Education Program. Her work focuses on the links between language and literacy development, specifically the possible role of linguistic rhythm sensitivity in dyslexia.