Educational Leadership

Professor Valerie Harlow Shinas is the chair of the Ph.D. in Educational Studies department and a faculty member in the Graduate School of Education. She joined Lesley University in 2012 after more than a decade working with middle school students and teachers. 

“As a teacher educator, I use my teaching experiences to make visible the connections between theory and practice for my students. Much of my work at Lesley University has centered on preparing teachers and teacher candidates to develop and deliver effective literacy and disciplinary literacy instruction. With expertise in the areas of technology-integrated literacy instruction and the TPACK theoretical framework, my research interests include integration of digital tools to support literacy and learning in K-12 classrooms.

"In addition, recent scholarly work has focused on teacher development and assessment of teacher practice. My transition to the PhD department has allowed me to use my experiences as a teacher educator and more than ten years as an educational researcher to support doctoral students on their academic journeys."

Education: BA, Anna Maria College; M.Ed., University of Massachusetts-Lowell; PhD, University of Delaware.

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

Kaoru Miyazawa is an educator, researcher, and therapist-in-training. Believing that education is a way to improve and heal society and individuals, she uses an interdisciplinary approach to understand pressing and emerging issues in society and education. For instance, she has conducted research about immigrant girls’ nostalgia and their future aspirations in the US, children’s cosmopolitan identity through their reading and writing, as well as the impact of trauma in Fukushima, Japan, following a nuclear disaster. As a high school English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and teacher-educator, she has also collaborated with classroom teachers, community organizations, and artists internationally to implement project-based learning. Her interest in art, healing, and community-building led her most recently to study Expressive Arts Therapy (ExAT). She is interested in bringing the principles and techniques of ExAT into classrooms, especially to engage students and teachers in difficult conversations in classrooms to restore community and humanity.

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.

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. Susan Rauchwerk

I currently serve as a Professor of Education and Associate Chair for STEAM in the Graduate School of Education. I direct the Lesley University WonderLab, a research and practice incubator for urban greenspace education. My primary goal in life is to help others establish and nurture connections to the natural world, and help mobilize actions that lead to local and global sustainability. I play and practice sustainable living in my urban-ish farmstead through gardening, chickens and pollinator meadowscaping for biodiversity.  

My scholarly and practice-based research focuses on science and engagement through Critical Exploration. As the daughter of a concentration camp survivor and the mother of an African American teen, I am committed to understanding the impact and responsibility of my white privilege, and contributing to a just and equitable education and future for ALL.

I am a senior advisor to doctoral students in Educational Studies programs, and teach Schools as Systems in the Education Leadership specialization. I teach STEAM content pedagogy courses to candidates seeking an early childhood or elementary license, as well as those seeking a middle school or high school science license. I also serve as core science education and professional development faculty with the Biogen STAR Initiative. 

I served as an Educator in Residence at Mount Auburn Cemetery through the Ecosystem Project funded by the Ruggiero Trust grant (video). Through an innovation grant, I support Make Way for Citizen Science children’s book project, where Lesley students work with science researchers and citizen science volunteers to write and illustrate children’s books focused on Mount Auburn Citizen Science. 

My other work includes ongoing support of equitable education initiatives in Ethiopia. Teacher candidates in my STEAM methods classes research write and illustrate culturally relevant science stories and lessons helping students understand how poverty and access to education impact learning. Thanks to a generous grant from Lesley University, I traveled to Ethiopia in 2016 to train Ethiopian educators and librarians as part of the Ethiopia Reads Book Centered Learning Committee. Through a partnership with WEEMA, the science stories written and illustrated by Lesley students are translated into three languages and distributed through WEEMA and Ethiopia Reads libraries. Read more about this project. 

I have been the program director for Science in Education, co-director of Elementary Education, and the director of the Urban Teacher Center.  An avid gardener and environmental sustainability activist, I helped Lesley students establish an organic garden, and teach the Science and Ethics of Food and Farming. I have organized a number of public science events including Restoring Urban Environments, the Climate Café, and STEAM Exploration Party as part of the Cambridge Science Festival.   

I also consult with schools to integrate nature-based education into the curriculum and schoolgrounds, providing professional development, curriculum design and strategic planning. 

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.