Human Development and Learning

Dr. Kelvin Ramirez is a Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC) and core faculty member of the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies. Kelvin is a Board Member of FNE International, a 501(c)3 organization that partners with communities in developing nations to identify opportunities to advance housing, health and education. With that international experience, Kelvin continues to collaborate and develops programs with educators, clinicians, and community leaders in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India. He has developed academic curriculum that build and reinforce initiatives in Nicaragua, The Dominican Republic, Haiti and India.

Prior to joining Lesley, Kelvin was the vice principal of a high school in the South Bronx where he developed and incorporated art therapy within educational systems to enhance student’s personal and academic growth. During his 9-year tenure as vice principal, art therapy was infused throughout the academic and therapeutic approaches of the school, increasing retention and shifting behavioral approaches to enhance students' socio-emotional development.

Kelvin has taught for the Counseling Division at the College of New Rochelle and the Clinical Art Therapy Program at Long Island University C.W. Post.

His current areas of interest and research include:

• The development of international art therapy initiatives that conform to the specific needs of communities
• Contemporary social justice issues
• How art therapy addresses or ignores systemic oppression
• The underrepresentation of people of color within the field of art therapy and the implications of this on theory and practice
• The connections between horticultural therapy and art therapy to transform communities

Teaching is important to Kelvin, because it is through this act of service that people are prepared to direct their destinies and author their own stories. It is a profession that entrusts educators with the malleable minds of the future. Kelvin holds fast to the unwavering ideals that brought him to education, including that social injustices can only be remedied by an educated populous, that an educated mind is a mind called into action for the betterment of all human kind, and that through educating our future generations, our positive influence on the world will continue long after we expire.

Stephen directs and teaches in the Educational Leadership and Human Development and Learning specializations of the PhD in Educational Studies program. He is a recognized educational leader with over 30 years of experience as an assistant superintendent, principal, and teacher. His areas of expertise include leadership development, curriculum, assessment, instructional design, organizational development, systems thinking, team building, strategic planning, and executive coaching.

Gould served as chair of the Professional Development Committee for the Massachusetts Elementary School Principals Association (MESPA) for over 10 years and was instrumental in developing MESPA's Principal Certification Program as well as their Doctoral Program Partnership with Boston College.

He has been a frequent workshop presenter, consultant and executive coach for MESPA, the National Institute for School Leaders (NISL), and the Ikeda Center. In a parallel life, Stephen is a song writer, composer and djembe player.

In academic year 2013-2014, Steve traveled to Kuwait to advise the Ministry of Education and work with school leaders to improve schools. The majority of the work is focused on helping 500 K-12 Kuwaiti school leaders better understand and implement collaborative approaches to improving teaching, learning, and leading.

See Steve’s conversation with the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue, about the many connections between music and leadership. 

Education: BM, Berklee College of Music; M.Ed., Fitchburg State College; Ed.D, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ulas is a professor in the PhD in Educational Studies program. He serves as the co-chair of Lesley's Institutional Review Board (IRB). He is a developmental scientist exploring human motivation and development from the perspective of complex dynamic systems. According to this perspective, human motivation, learning and development can be understood in terms of temporal relationships between multiple psychological, organismic and environmental factors, which are intertwined. Ulas's work in moral psychology connects cognitive-developmental ideas with an affective and dynamic understanding of the moral mind.

Ulas's work in human well-being examines psychological and physiological factors in relation to the therapeutic practice of mental imagery (intentional use of imagination). Similar to his exploration of moral judgment and motivation (to be subject to short-term changes), he examines well-being as an experience that is dynamically variable in a short time (microdevelopment of daily well-being).

In a book he recently published in his native language (Turkish) on violence and education, Ulas proposed a dynamic developmental update and revision of Dewey's and Kohlberg's progressive educational vision. That is, he proposed that development and well-being can be universally valuable and inclusive aims of education if both development and well-being are understood dynamically with an appreciation of complexity.

Kabba E. Colley is a Professor in the Ph.D. in Educational Studies Program in the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University. His rich professional experience includes high school science teaching, curriculum development, teacher education, program evaluation, education research, and higher education administration.

Prior to joining the faculty at Lesley University, he served as academic dean and department chair at various higher education institutions. In addition, he held research positions at TERC Inc., The Northeast Regional Educational Laboratory and The National Center for Improving Science Education. He is an experienced program evaluator and has evaluated nationally recognized science and mathematics education projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.  

His most recent service to the academic community includes serving on the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) Research and Dissemination Committee, the International Advisory Board of the National Science Teachers Association and reviewer for The Science Teacher, Cultural Studies of Science Education and American Journal of Evaluation.

Kabba’s research interests focus on project-based science instruction, gender issues in science education, international education, and recruitment and retention of Black and Latino male teachers.  He has authored two books, namely Resilience and success: The professional journeys of African American women scientists (co-authored with Dr. Binta M. Colley) (2013) and Purposeful engagement in science learning: The project-based approach (2016), Peter Lang Publishers, New York, NY.

He considers himself a “data head” and is currently studying and exploring possible applications of data science in education to inform policy and practice at the state level.  He is a recipient of the US Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Research Projects Abroad Award in 2017.

Frank holds a PhD in the Social Studies of Science from the Union Institute. In 1978, Frank co-founded the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute (AEI), creating degree programs in environmental studies. Since the summer of 1989 when he spent a year living at a Navajo trading post in Rough Rock, AZ, he has participated in the Navajo nine-night Nightway Ceremony, a traditional healing ritual.

From 1972 through 1992 he attended spring Kachina dances on the Hopi and Zuni reservations, and since 1990 he has attended Easter ceremonies in Yaqui (Tucson, AZ), Tarahumara (Chihuahua, Mexico), and Tzotzil (Chiapas, Mexico) communities. He has a particular interest in looking at science as it is applied in areas of popular culture, such as Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the conflicts between popular and orthodox conceptions of science.

Salvatore (Sal) Terrasi is project director for the Lesley Institute for Trauma Sensitivity and oversees all program activities. He is a member of the adjunct faculty and an authority on educational research, measurement, and evaluation. As a practitioner with more than 45 years of experience in public education, Sal has been a classroom teacher, school adjustment counselor, special education team chair, and director of research. He has presented at many professional conferences, published articles in a number of professional journals and conference proceedings, and is co-author of “Trauma and learning in America’s classrooms,” Kappan (March 2017)

Dr. Caroline Heller is Professor Emerita at Lesley University. Previously, she taught in the PhD in Educational Studies programs in the Graduate School of Education. In her research courses, she brought her background as an urban educator, qualitative researcher of out-of-school literacy settings, writer for the Teaching Tolerance Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and archival researcher for her study of central Europe before the war.

Her interest in helping qualitative researchers write well about their areas of study led her and nine of her doctoral students to write a book describing this endeavor, Meaning is the Fruit of This Intimacy: Narrative Writing for Doctoral Students and Qualitative Researchers, to be published by Teachers College Press in early 2023.

Caroline’s memoir, Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts, was published by Dial Press, Penguin Random House in 2015, and was re-issued as a paperback by Leapfrog Press. It looks at Central Europe before, during, and after World War II through the lens of her own family, particularly her father, Paul, who was imprisoned in Buchenwald for six years. The memoir is based on historical research, letters, interviews, and extensive travel. The book was reviewed favorably in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Yazmin Colón Garcia is the Associate Director of the PhD Program in Educational Studies and has been at Lesley since 2008 in a variety of roles.

In her current role, Yazmin serves as the department's primary point of contact for information on student support and academic services. She works closely with senior advisors, specialization directors, and the co-chairs of the department, monitoring student academic progress from the point of enrollment through degree completion. Yazmin also works closely with university administrative offices, identifying issues for guidance, problem solving, and referring students to appropriate offices as needed.