Project Team
Sonya Gunnings-Moton
Project Director
Sonya Gunnings-Moton is Associate Dean, Support Services & Engagement and an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology & Special Education. She has major responsibilities for program efforts fostering the recruitment and retention of under-represented groups to undergraduate and graduate programs, and providing leadership for many urban education initiatives, including the Urban Educators Cohort Program, the Urban Immersion Fellowship and the Urban Partnership Pre-College Program. She works extensively with schools to establish Professional Learning Communities and facilitate effective school cultures.
Punya Mishra
Project Director
Dr. Punya Mishra is Associate Dean of Scholarship & Innovation and Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership & Innovation in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He also has an affiliate faculty position in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. The readers and editors of Technology and Learning journal recently named him as one of the ten most influential people in educational technology.
Leigh Graves Wolf
Project Director
Leigh is a teacher-scholar and her work centers around online education, emerging technologies and relationships mediated by and with technology. She has worked across the educational spectrum from K12 to Higher to further and lifelong. Leigh has been a disc jockey, network administrator, teacher, instructional technologist and now professor. She believes passionately in collaboration and community. Leigh is currently the Assistant Director of the MSU Hub for Innovation in Learning & Technology and an Associate Professor of Educational Technology at Michigan State University.
Missy Cosby
Instructor
Missy Cosby is a high school math teacher and MTSS/RTI coach in Okemos, Michigan. She is passionate about maximizing the success of students who struggle with traditional success in secondary mathematics and loves to find ways that technology can help engage these students and aid their teachers. Additionally, her newest research interests focus on the intersection of race, gender, and mathematics identities of African American girls. She is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology/Educational Technology program at MSU.
Akesha Horton
Instructor
Dr. Akesha Horton earned her doctorate in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University. While completing her PhD, she became a Fulbright-mtvU Scholar and worked with Australian based hip-hop artists to implement educational programs that served underrepresented youth. Dr. Horton has been an active agent in the educational arena, including in and out-of-school urban settings, higher education, instructional design, e-learning, and curriculum development. These collective experiences led to her research interests exploring the intersections between learning, technology, and culture for youth.
Candace Marcotte
Instructor
Candace Marcotte is a program coordinator for the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University and an instructor for the MSU-WIPRO STEM & Leadership Teaching fellowship. Her work in K-12 education includes teaching 6th grade ELA and science and serving as a 1:1 Technology Facilitator at the middle school level. Candace has been teaching online for the MAET program since 2013, which was when her interest in creativity in adult learning ignited.
Rohit Mehta
Instructor
Rohit Mehta is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. His research interests revolve around literacy, media, and science, and transdisciplinary teaching and learning. He is also interested in working with teachers on multimodal compositions, providing students with multiple venues to express and share. Before coming to MSU, he taught engineering in India for about three years.
Kyle Shack
Instructor
Kyle Shack is a Social Studies teacher at Allegan Alternative High School in Allegan, Michigan. He received both his bachelor’s degree in History and master’s degree in Educational Technology (MAET) from Michigan State University. Kyle is dedicated to providing his students with an authentic and collaborative educational experience. He uses his passion for all things technology to create an open classroom for his students.
Inese Berzina-Pitcher
Research and Project Support
Inese Berzina-Pitcher received her master’s degree in Evaluation, Measurement and Research from Western Michigan University and currently is an advanced doctoral student in the Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education Program at Michigan State University. She has over ten years of experience in project management, program evaluation and needs assessments.
Swati Mehta
Research and Project Support
Swati Mehta is a doctoral student and a research assistant in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University. Her research interests focus on implementing student-centered learning approaches in K-12 and higher education settings with primary focus on problem-based learning. Earlier, she worked as an Assistant Professor in an MBA institute in India, where she obtained the opportunity to enhance students’ problem solving skills through the use of practical examples and problems that had real-world applications.
Chris Seals
Research and Project Support
Chris Seals is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. He serves a Research Assistant on the UrbanSTEM project with a focus on research, evaluation, and measurement. His research interests include motivational aspects in learning and achievement, specifically for students of color. Lately he has focused on social psychological interventions, based on self-affirmation theory. Particularly studying the mechanisms of how student belongingness and students view of ability (fixed versus growth) impact the students’ achievement.
Chessi Oetjens
Content Curator and Social Media
Chessica Oetjens is a Technology Media Specialist for Monroe Public Schools in Monroe, Michigan. She received a bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston and a master’s degree in Educational Technology (MAET) from Michigan State University. She served as a Content Curator for the MAET program. Chessica enjoys teaching digital literacy to young students and values creation, collaboration, and new learning.
Heather Johnson
Project Support
Heather is the program assistant for the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at MSU. She studied Business Administration at Davenport College and Michigan State University.
Jessica Pham
Project Support
Jessica was the Assistant to the Assistant Dean of Support Services and Recruitment for the College of Education. She received her B.A. in English Literature from Michigan State University.
Litrea Hunter
Chicago Recruitment/Sustainability Coordinator
During Ms. Hunter’s tenure with Chicago Public Schools, she has served as manager for Teacher Recertification and No Child Left Behind projects. Prior to her role as manager, she was assigned as lead facilitator for the CPS Induction and Mentoring program. Ms. Hunter received a bachelor’s degree in education from National Louis University and a master’s degree in educational administration from Northeastern University. In addition, she is a graduate of the distinguished National Staff Development Council’s Professional Development Academy.
Dakota Pawlicki
Chicago Recruitment/Sustainability Coordinator
Dakota is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Projects at Chicago Public Schools. He is a certified teacher with an array of experience from classroom teaching to non-profit management. Dakota has extensive experience with higher education, college access and success programming, grant writing, teacher preparation programming, non-profit development and management, community integration to teacher preparation programs, developing cultural relevancy in teachers and teacher candidates. He received his bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Illinois State University.
Day Greenberg
Curriculum Development Team
Day Greenberg is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University, studying interactional processes in informal STEM learning (science/technology/engineering/math). By exploring these relationships, Day hopes to discover how scaffolding learning experiences outside of the classroom (i.e., in museums, clubs, camps and websites) can support both academic and professional achievement in STEM fields.
Michelle Schira Hagerman
Curriculum Development Team
Michelle Schira Hagerman is an Assistant Professor of Educational Technology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. She has a PhD in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology from the College of Education at Michigan State University, an M.A. in Modern Language Education from the University of British Columbia, a B.Ed. and a B.A. (Honours) from Queen’s University. Michelle is also an Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT).
Andrea Zellner
Curriculum Development Team
Andrea Zellner is a former High School English and Biology teacher. She is a doctoral student in Ed Tech/Ed Psych at Michigan State University. She also works with the Red Cedar Writing Project and the National Writing Project. She writes for Inside Higher Ed on the Gradhacker blog. Her current research interests focus on the impact of technological tools on student learning and writing achievement.