CLARA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director
- Associate Research Professor
Angela K. Murray, PhD, is an associate research professor and graduate lecturer at the University of Kansas (KU), teaching courses in research methods and statistics. She is the director of the KU Center for Learner Agency Research and Action (CLARA), founding chair of the AERA Montessori Special Interest Group, founding editor of the Journal of Montessori Research. and lead editor for the Bloomsbury Handbook of Montessori Education. Dr. Murray earned her doctorate from KU in psychology and research in education, with a minor in cultural anthropology and was awarded honors for her dissertation, "Public Perceptions of Montessori Education." She has published extensively on Montessori education and has presented on learner agency fostering pedagogies at numerous national and international conferences.
Job Titles:
- Fellow of Both the American Psychological Association
Dr. Angeline Lillard, an elected fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. She received her doctorate in psychology from Stanford University in 1991, and she was awarded the American Psychological Association's Boyd McCandless Award for Distinguished Early Career Contribution in 1999. Her book "Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius," now in its third edition, received the Cognitive Development Society Book Award. She has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Science and Pediatrics, and her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and many private foundations.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Independent Researcher and Consultant
Dr. Carolyn Daoust is an independent researcher and consultant with 35 years of experience in Montessori education. She holds both AMS (3-6) and Association Montessori Internationale (6-12) teaching credentials and has been a Montessori classroom teacher, teacher educator, and program coordinator. Most recently Dr. Daoust was an associate professor at Saint Mary's College of California, where she was employed for 20 years. Her research interests include Montessori implementation and practice, Montessori teacher education, and children's mathematical thinking. Dr. Daoust is a former member of the AMS board of directors and served on the board's research committee from 2007 to 2013.
Job Titles:
- Director of Professional Learning at the National Center for Montessori
Dr. Katie Brown is the Director of Professional Learning at the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector. Her professional experience includes charter and district traditional schools, higher education, nonprofits, school boards, and state education administration. Dr. Brown earned her Ph.D. in urban education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she studied outcomes for African American students in public Montessori schools. She has published and presented research on public Montessori, executive functions, and creativity in both domestic and international venues. As the Director of Professional Learning at NCMPS, Dr. Brown oversees continuing education courses for Montessori practitioners, oversees the Center's research initiatives, and teaches graduate-level courses through a partnership with Whitworth University.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of the Practice at the University of Notre Dame
Dr. Maria McKenna is an associate professor of the Practice at the University of Notre Dame. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Africana Studies and the Education, Schooling, and Society program. She is also a faculty fellow for both the Institute for Educational Initiatives and Notre Dame's Poverty Studies program. As a qualitative researcher with particular expertise in child-centered research, Dr. McKenna studies the philosophy of educational care and space, youth empowerment, and the social and cultural contexts of education related to equity and inclusion. Dr. McKenna serves as a conduit between the Montessori community and mainstream educational researchers in a variety of arenas. She has been published in several academic journals and presses, and she serves on the editorial and review boards of various publications, including the Journal of Montessori Research.
Job Titles:
- Associate Researcher
- Associate Researcher for CLARA and a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Cincinnati
Heather Gerker is an associate researcher for CLARA and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati, where she is studying educational policy. She serves as a graduate assistant for the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute and as a teacher assistant for research methodology courses. Heather has taught in various settings, including teacher education, preschool, kindergarten, and Montessori early childhood classrooms.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Research Professor
Jade Caines Lee, PhD, is an assistant research professor and leads the Equity and Assessment area within KU Center for Learner Agency Research and Action (CLARA). She has been a career educator, teaching P-12, undergraduate, and graduate students for over 20 years. She has presented and published in the areas of validity, classroom assessment, evaluation research, and fairness issues in the educational measurement field.
Job Titles:
- Independent Researcher and Consultant
Joel Parham is an independent researcher and consultant based in Los Angeles. He worked for 20 years in academic and special libraries, and from 2011 to 2020, Joel was the Associate Director of the Fox Research Library at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. His broad research experience includes production design research (television/film), and more recently, the history of Montessori education. In 2020 he created the Montessori Bibliography Online, which he regularly updates. Joel earned his undergraduate degree in Sociology from Portland State University and his master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Jose Fabián Elizondo-González, M.A., is a PhD student in the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Kansas. He specializes in foreign language learning and assessment, as well as in multicultural studies involving international students and their sense of belonging at the graduate level. His ongoing collaboration with the Foreign Language Assessment Program (PELEx) within the School of Modern Languages at the University of Costa Rica underscores his commitment to advancing the understanding and implementation of performance-based assessment in language education in Latin American contexts.
Job Titles:
- Researcher
- Senior Associate
- Associate Researcher, Senior
Trina E. Emler, PhD, is a senior associate researcher focusing on learner agency through creativity and innovation within learner-centered education and change initiatives. She has been a practitioner in the private and public K-12 sectors and has worked in leadership, mentorship, program and standards evaluation, and co-teaching for diversity and inclusion. She has a passion for connecting research and practice in authentic ways and has published in the areas of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship education and associated pedagogical strategies, authentic use of technologies, and assessments as a means of meeting the needs of diverse learners.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Research Associate
Wally Meyer, MBA, Director University Center and Senior Research Associate at KU's Institute for Policy and Social Research, was the faculty founder of the nationally top ranked KU Entrepreneurship Program, architect of the several applied research initiatives which have had a significant impact on Midwestern states' economic development. These include: the RedTire management succession program, The Catalyst KU's student new venture incubator, Jayhawk Consulting and Startup School@KU which applied the I-Corps Lean Startup principles to commercialize KU's federal grant supported lab inventions. Finally, Meyer is mentor to over two dozen deep tech SHARPhub grant supported participating university startups. Prior to joining the KU faculty, Meyer was a senior manager at Gillette, Nabisco, Sprint and led four successful startups.