August 08, 2008

Education college welcomes 12 faculty members

by K.C. Jaehnig

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Twelve faculty members have joined the College of Education and Human Services at Southern Illinois University Carbondale for the new academic year.

New assistant professors are: Paul Asunda, workforce education and development; Lingguo Bu, curriculum and instruction; Julia Champe, educational psychology and special education; Maria Claudia Franca, Rehabilitation Institute; Nicole A. Heal, Rehabilitation Institute; V. Muthoni Kimemia, educational psychology and special education; Christina C. McIntyre, curriculum and instruction; Thomas Parry, kinesiology; Jared Porter, kinesiology; Dhitnut Ratnapradipa, health education and recreation; Dona J. Reese, social work; and Deborah Seltzer-Kelly, curriculum and instruction.

• Asunda is interested in ways of integrating mathematics, science and technology in the workforce education curriculum. His research focuses on best practices in teacher education.

A graduate of the University of Georgia, he came to SIUC from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tenn.

• Bu will teach mathematics in the elementary, early childhood and special education math sequence. He has a multidisciplinary background in mathematical learning and cognition and is interested in the connections between language, mathematics and the use of interactive technology in promoting student learning and teacher education. As part of his doctoral education, he developed a Web-based instructional sequence (www.primesincontext.org).

Bu received his doctorate from Florida State University this August.

• Champe will teach life-span developing, group counseling theory and practice and the career group practicum. She also will assist with marriage, couple and family counseling. Champe’s research focuses on education and training in counselor education. She currently is studying how trainees’ cognitive processes and structuring affect live supervision, both in terms of the counseling process and feedback.

Champe earned her doctorate from Idaho State University in 2004 and previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

• Franca will teach in the institute’s communication disorders and sciences area. Her research focuses on voice disorders and the effects of hydration on the voice. A Fulbright award winner, Franca also has produced two peer-reviewed articles and a book chapter and has additional manuscripts in preparation.

Franca earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees from SIUC’s Rehabilitation Institute. In addition, she has undergraduate and graduate degrees from universities in her native Brazil, where she began her academic career.

• Heal will teach basic behavior analysis and behavior change applications in the institute’s behavior analysis and therapyarea. A certified behavior analyst, she came to SIUC after a post-doctoral fellowship at the May Center for Education and Neurorehabilitation in Brockton, Mass., one of the country’s only schools for children and teens with brain injuries. Her research focuses on problems in early childhood and preschool; she is the co-author of six articles published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, the discipline’s leading journal.

Heal earned her doctorate and master’s degrees from the University of Kansas and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine at Farmington.

• Kimemia, whose teaching will focus on community counseling and school counseling, will teach the counseling practicum and counseling appraisal and oversee internships. Her research focuses on culturally responsive counseling with an emphasis on Africa. In rural Kenya she helped primary school teachers develop counseling micro-skills and group facilitation skills so they could better teach a government-mandated HIV/AIDS curriculum. She also studies women who are the primary caregivers for family members living with HIV/AIDS and plans to expand that research to other rural areas with HIV/AIDS.

Kimemia earned her doctorate from the University of Central Florida, where she also taught after completing her degree in 2006.

• McIntyre, who served for several years as the college’s LiveText coordinator and as a term faculty in early childhood education, will move to a tenure-track position in the preschool/primary early childhood certification program. Her research includes work on the use of portfolios in teacher education.

McIntyre earned her doctorate from Georgia State University in 2007.

• Parry, who taught courses at Indiana University in motor skill learning, weight management and exercise, will focus on pedagogy and physical education teacher education here, with courses on how to teach team sports and a section of the motor behavior class. His research centers on motor skill learning, with an emphasis on practice schedules and knowledge of results.

Parry earned his doctorate from Indiana University in August.

• Porter, who taught courses in motor learning and tests and measurements at Louisiana State University, will focus on pedagogy and motor behavior here. He will teach courses on motor behavior and the foundation, organization and administration of physical education during the fall semester. His research centers on the role of contextual interferences in the learning of motor skills, and he has published articles in the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology and the International Journal of Sport Sciences and Coaching.

He earned his doctorate from Louisiana State University in May.

• Ratnapradipa’s research focuses on environmental health education interventions for underserved populations and interventions designed to increase public understanding of toxic chemical and pollution prevention programs.

Ratnapradipa received his doctorate from the University of Utah. Before coming to SIUC, he supervised the Rhode Island Department of Health’s Office of Environmental Health Risk Assessment. He also taught in the public health program at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School.

• Reese, formerly an adjunct faculty member, will teach undergraduate research and advanced social work practice with children, youth and families. Her research focuses on psychosocial and spiritual issues in counseling with dying patients, work with families and interdisciplinary teams in hospice settings, and addressing organizational barriers to culturally competent hospice services. She is currently planning a local project to increase access to hospice for diverse cultural groups.

Reese received her doctorate from the University of Maryland at Baltimore in 1994 and previously has taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

• Seltzer-Kelly will teach action research courses and the graduate introduction to curricula. Her research focuses on student response to diversity in fine arts courses, including an assessment of their ability to detect the presence and analyze the possible effects of the ways the fine arts portray identity.

Seltzer-Kelly earned her doctorate in 2006 from the University of Nevada, Reno.