Education and Social Policy: Faculty and Staff

Interdisciplinary Programs

The education and social policy Ph.D. program is a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort between the University of Delaware's College of Education and Human Development and the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. Faculty members involved with the program are listed below.

Laura Desimone

Program Director

lauramd@udel.edu

302-831-4110

Laura Desimone is professor and director of research in the College of Education and Human Development, with a faculty appointment in the School of Education and an affiliation with the Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics faculty group. She holds a secondary appointment in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. Before that, she was a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania from 2007 until 2018, with a secondary appointment at the School of Social Policy and Practice. She was an assistant professor at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University from 2001-2007, and before that was a senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research and a postdoctoral research associate at Yale University’s Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. She was also a researcher at RAND in Washington, D.C., and at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Sarah Bruch

Associate Program Director

skbruch@udel.edu

608-335-5676

Jasmin Rivers

Graduate Services Coordinator

jarivers@udel.edu

302-831-4933

CONTACT THE PROGRAM

Biden School

Name/Profile	Email	Research Focus
Sarah Bruch	skbruch@udel.edu	Social stratification and inequality; race and ethnicity; social policy and politics; sociology of education; education policy; quantitative methods; political sociology.
Amy Schwartz	aeschwar@udel.edu	Education policy and urban economics, focusing on the nexus of schools, neighborhoods and public services and the causes and consequences of children’s academic, social and health outcomes.
Joseph Trainor	jtrainor@udel.edu	Risk, Risk Perception, and Warnings; Organizational management; Justice and Equity; Infrastructure; Community Engagement and Civil Society; Disaster Science; Emergency Management; Quantitative Research; Survey Research; Qualitative research; Mixed methods; Interdisciplinarity, Research and Practice Integration

Human Development and Family Sciences

Name/Profile	Email	Research Focus
Ann M. Aviles	amaviles@udel.edu	Equity and Diversity in Families and Communities, Early Childhood and Adolescent Social-Emotional Development, Education and Social Policy, Family Policy and Services
Martha Buell	mjbuell@udel.edu	Early Childhood, Literacy and Language, Language Development, Equity and Diversity in Early Childhood, Teacher Preparation and Professional Development, Early Childhood Teacher Preparation, Education and Social Policy, Early Care and Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration
Roderick L. Carey	RLCarey@udel.edu	Equity and Diversity in K-12 Education, Education and Social Policy, Teacher Preparation and Professional Development, K-12 Teacher Preparation
Valerie Earnshaw	earnshaw@udel.edu	Health, Equity and Diversity, Social Determinants of Health
Rena Hallam	rhallam@udel.edu	Early Childhood, Education and Social Policy, Early Care and Education Policy, Teacher Preparation and Professional Development, Early Childhood Teacher Preparation
Jason Hustedt	jhustedt@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, Early Care and Education Policy, Early Childhood, Family Policy and Services
Allison Karpyn	karpyn@udel.edu	Social Determinants of Health , Education and Social Policy, Social Policy and Program Evaluation
Barbara Settles	settlesb@udel.edu	Equity and Diversity in Families and Communities, Early Childhood and Adolescent Social-Emotional Development, Education and Social Policy, Family Policy and Services
Anamarie Whitaker	awhit@udel.edu	Early Childhood, Social-Emotional Development, Education and Social Policy, Early Care and Education Policy

School of Education

Name/Profile	Email	Research Focus
Lauren Bailes	lbailes@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration
Dominique Baker	djbaker@udel.edu	Diversity and Equity in K-12 Education, Diversity and Equity in Post-secondary and Higher Education, Education and Social Policy, Equity and Diversity, Higher Education Policy, K-12 Education Policy
Elizabeth Farley-Ripple	enfr@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration
Gary T. Henry	cehd-dean@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration
Erica Litke	litke@udel.edu	STEM Education, Math Teaching & Learning
Henry May	hmay@udel.edu	Quantitative Methods, Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration
Florence Xiaotao Ran	fxran@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, Higher Education Policy
Kenneth A. Shores	kshores@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy
Sanford R. Student	srstu@udel.edu	Research Methods and Data Science, Measurement and Psychometrics
Bryan A. VanGronigen	bvg@udel.edu	Education and Social Policy, K-12 Education Policy, Education Leadership and Administration