USF RISE Faculty

Dr. Patriann Smith, a Caribbean native and USF Principal Investigator and USF Project Coordinator of RISE Caribbean, serves as a tenured associate professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. Smith works in conjunction with UWI Principal Investigator — Professor S. Joel Warrican and UWI Project Coordinator – Dr. Coreen Leacock, to build research capacity and generate high-quality research and publications in the Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC) by leveraging the expertise of pre-eminent research productive faculty from USF. Through the establishment of the Cross-Cultural Research Mentorship Network (CCRMN) that serves as a basis for the RISE UWI-USF research-practice partnership, Dr. Smith serves as a bridge between the USF Research Mentors, USF Instructional Faculty and UWI CERC Research Fellows and Research Assistants. She oversees preparations for, and the implementation of, RISE Caribbean Summer Institutes held yearly at The UWI Cave Hill, which are supported by USF Research Mentors and USF Instructional Faculty. She serves as coordinator of the 2023 RISE Caribbean research conference held at USF, a joint venture co-hosted with RISE Caribbean partners at The UWI Cave Hill.

Dr. Smith’s transdisciplinary research considers how literacy teaching, research, assessment, and policy are influenced by the intersection of race, language, and immigration. She examines specifically, how differences in languages, Englishes, and English language ideologies affect Black Caribbean students’ immigrant literacy practices as they cross cultures and languages between their home countries and the United States. She draws from the Black Englishes and Black literacies of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, other Black immigrants in the United States (i.e., African), and Black American students (i.e., African-American) to propose solutions that advance ‘transraciolinguistic justice’. Through her transnationally focused scholarship, Dr. Smith has proposed ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ to explain how Englishes and the language ideologies that inform the use of these Englishes, both challenge and create affordances for cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-linguistic literacy instruction. She has also proposed the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’, the concept of ‘translanguaging with Englishes while Black,’ and the notion of ‘raciosemiotic architecture’ to clarify the elements involved in Black youth literacies as their translanguaging is transracialized across borders.

Dr. Smith has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ), Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ), Teachers College Record (TCR), Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean (JEDIC) and International Multilingual Research Journal (IMRJ). She continues to extend her research by comparing insights about Black immigrant Englishes and Black immigrant literacy practices in international literacy assessment and transcultural teacher education to that of other native Black populations in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean. An overview of Dr. Smith’s transdisciplinary body of research is available on Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Academia. Her description of a transraciolinguistic approach is available in the Classroom Caffeine podcast and the voicEd Radio podcast.

Dr. Smith currently serves as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (2020-2023) and as Co-Principal Investigator of the $3.6 million USAID funded Caribbean Educational Research Initiative: RISE Caribbean.

Dr. Smith is author of the book “Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom” (2023) and co-author of the book “Affirming Black Students’ Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness” (2022) published by Teachers College Press.

For more information about Dr. Patriann Smith, please see here.

---

Dr. Constance Hines, USF Faculty Coordinator of the RISE Caribbean initiative, is Professor Emerita at the University of South Florida. Dr. Hines supports RISE Instructional Faculty to develop course modules applicable to the Caribbean context. She is an expert in statistics and research methods and a Caribbean as well as U.S. national, serving as a Caribbean and methodological resource for USF Instructional Faculty. During the RISE Sumer Institute, Dr. Hines provides a support for Instructional Faculty at The UWI Cave Hill as they make content applicable to the research foci of Caribbean researchers.

Dr. Connie Hines’s research interests include the application of statistical methods to educational data, the measurement of teacher behavior and factors that mediate the effect of teacher behavior on student achievement. Her work has been published in Journal of Experimental Education, Journal of Educational and Psychological Measurement, Journal of Educational Research, and American Educational Research Journal.

For more information about Dr. Connie Hines, please see here.

---

Dr. James King, USF Research Mentor of the Cross-Cultural Research Mentorship Network (CCRMN) in the RISE Caribbean initiative, mentors RISE Caribbean Research Fellows/Research Assistants and supports these fellows/assistants in the processes of research development and productivity in the areas such as developing a research study, implementing a research study, writing for publication, writing for conference presentation, publishing, presenting, grant writing, etc. for the duration of the three-year period. As a Research Mentor, Dr. King meets with fellows/assistants virtually on a monthly basis for the duration of each academic year, face-to-face for three weeks in the summer of each year on the UWI Cave Hill campus, and virtually on a monthly basis with the Research Mentor/Research Fellow team for the duration of each academic year of the study. Dr. King works in collaboration with other RISE Caribbean USF Research Mentors to prepare fellows/assistants to present their research to stakeholders at the UWI/USF CERC conferences held within the local Caribbean context at the UWI Cave Hill campus about their research studies in Year 2 and at the USF campus in Year 3.

Dr. King’s research interests include early and emergent literacies, digital and media literacies, text analysis, history of literacy, historical approaches to research, qualitative inquiry, queer theory in educational contexts. His current projects include an examination of early literacy policy in post-apartheid South Africa; the impact of visual literacies on instruction in composing processes; and the effects of online conversion in a reading master’s program.

For more information about Dr. Jim King, please see here.

---

Dr. Robert Dedrick, USF Instructional Faculty of the RISE Caribbean initiative, works in conjunction with RISE Caribbean Research Mentors and with the CERC team to provide quantitative research methods courses to emerging UWI researchers each summer at The UWI Cave Hill campus. As a member of the RISE Caribbean Instructional Faculty, Dr. Dedrick develops course content and brings his expertise regarding applicability of research methods for the Caribbean context based on input from UWI Research Fellows and CERC research teams in the Caribbean about their methodological needs for undertaking research in the Caribbean region. Dr. Dedrick revises course content yearly in alignment with the revised research agenda established by the CERC/RISE Research Advisory Committee and in alignment with the research studies undertaken by UWI Research Fellows, Assistants, and researchers in the CERI at The UWI Cave Hill.

Dr. Robert Dedrick’s research interests include the use of structural equation modeling to examine measurement quality of psychological instruments, the analysis of change using multilevel modeling, and mentoring in doctoral education. He has recently worked with Dr. Doug Rohrer (PI) on an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Goal Three Efficacy grant that involves evaluating an intervention (Interleaved Mathematics Practice) designed to improve mathematics achievement of middle school students. A multisite cluster randomized control trial is being used in the evaluation. He has also recently worked on an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Goal Two Development grant with Drs. Shannon Suldo (PI) and Elizabeth Shaunessy-Dedrick (Co-PI) that involves creating an intervention designed to help high school students cope with the stress associated with participation in Advanced Placement classes and the International Baccalaureate Program. The intervention is being developed using an iterative, design-based research approach and is being evaluated with a cluster randomized control trial. Student outcomes include educational achievement and mental health outcomes. Dr. Dedrick’s research has been published in Psychological Assessment, Journal of Educational Psychology, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Sociology of Education, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and Mentoring and Tutoring.

For more information about Dr. Robert Dedrick please see here.

---

Dr. Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, USF Research Mentor of the Cross-Cultural Research Mentorship Network (CCRMN) in the RISE Caribbean initiative, mentors RISE Caribbean Research Fellows/Research Assistants and supports these fellows/assistants in the processes of research development and productivity in the areas such as developing a research study, implementing a research study, writing for publication, writing for conference presentation, publishing, presenting, grant writing, etc. for the duration of the three-year period. As a Research Mentor, Dr. Cobb-Roberts meets with fellows/assistants virtually on a monthly basis for the duration of each academic year, face-to-face for three weeks in the summer of each year on the UWI Cave Hill campus, and virtually on a monthly basis with the Research Mentor/Research Fellow team for the duration of each academic year of the study. Dr. Cobb-Roberts works in collaboration with other RISE Caribbean USF Research Mentors to prepare fellows/assistants to present their research to stakeholders at the UWI/USF CERC conferences held within the local Caribbean context at the UWI Cave Hill campus about their research studies in Year 2 and at the USF campus in Year 3.

Dr. Cobb-Roberts is a professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies and serves as coordinator of the Social Foundations in Education Program. Additionally, she is a USF faculty affiliate within the Higher Education & Student Affairs Program and Women and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Cobb-Roberts is a former McKnight Faculty Fellow. Dr. Cobb-Roberts received her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Her research focuses on gendered racism in the faculty and administrative ranks of Black women in higher education. She interrogates the structures of power that potentially affect the interpretations of institutional climates, cultures, and experiences, as well as the mentoring practices and performance as Black women administrators.

Dr. Cobb-Roberts’ publications include multiple book chapters and articles in the History of Education Quarterly, American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Teacher Education, International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice, Educational Considerations, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning and NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education, amongst others. She has a co-edited a book, Schools as Imagined Communities: The Creation of Identity, Meaning and Conflict in U.S. history, a co-authored book, Black Women, Academe, and the Tenure Process in the United States and the Caribbean, and just completed a third book (co-edited),Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis: Storying the lives and Contributions of Black Women Administrators.

For more information about Dr. Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, please see here.

---

Dr. Eun Sook Kim, USF Research Mentor of the Cross-Cultural Research Mentorship Network (CCRMN) in the RISE Caribbean initiative, mentors RISE Caribbean Research Fellows/Research Assistants and supports these fellows/assistants in the processes of research development and productivity in the areas such as developing a research study, implementing a research study, writing for publication, writing for conference presentation, publishing, presenting, grant writing, etc. for the duration of the three-year period. As a Research Mentor, Dr. Kim meets with fellows/assistants virtually on a monthly basis for the duration of each academic year, face-to-face for three weeks in the summer of each year on the UWI Cave Hill campus, and virtually on a monthly basis with the Research Mentor/Research Fellow team for the duration of each academic year of the study. Dr. Kim works in collaboration with other RISE Caribbean USF Research Mentors to prepare fellows/assistants to present their research to stakeholders at the UWI/USF CERC conferences held within the local Caribbean context at the UWI Cave Hill campus about their research studies in Year 2 and at the USF campus in Year 3.

Dr. Eun Sook Kim has a broad interest in research methodology and psychometrics including structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, latent class analysis, and factor mixture modeling. Her focal research interests include measurement invariance testing in multilevel and longitudinal data. She has recently focused on factor mixture approach to testing measurement invariance particularly with multilevel data and with a large number of groups. She has been involved in research groups studying propensity score analysis, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, Bayesian estimation, and robust ANOVA in collaboration with faculty and graduate students and has published extensively in her research area.

For more information about Dr. Eunsook Kim, please see here.

---

Dr. Jennifer Wolgemuth, USF Instructional Faculty of the RISE Caribbean initiative, works in conjunction with RISE Caribbean Research Mentors and with the CERC team to provide qualitative research methods courses to emerging UWI researchers each summer at the UWI Cave Hill campus. As a member of the RISE Caribbean Instructional Faculty, Dr. Wolgemuth develops course content and brings her expertise regarding applicability of research methods for the Caribbean context based on input from UWI Research Fellows and CERC research teams in the Caribbean about their methodological needs for undertaking research in the Caribbean region. Dr. Wolgemuth revises course content yearly in alignment with the revised research agenda established by the CERC/RISE Research Advisory Committee and in alignment with the research studies undertaken by UWI Research Fellows, Assistants, and researchers in the CERI at The UWI Cave Hill.

Dr. Wolgemuth received her doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in Research Methods from Colorado State University. As an applied analyst of research, Jennifer Wolgemuth uses social science methods to study the processes of implementing, reporting, and engaging research in Education.

Dr. Wolgemuth’s areas of expertise include Qualitative Research, Research Design, Interviews, and Systematic Reviews. Her work is largely concerned with questions about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘ethical’ research, beginning with the understanding that all social science research is social, political, and interventional; it both studies and produces the categories and experiences it seeks to understand. She draws on critical, postmodern/poststructural, and new materialist theories to explore the contexts, productions, and interventions of social science research and creates new qualitative methods for doing so.

Her work has been published in Educational Researcher, Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitative Research, Qualitative Health Research, Review of Higher Education, Computers & Education, and Journal of Educational Research. Currently, she is a lead editor for The Qualitative Report and serves as the American Educational Research Association Qualitative Research SIG Program Co-Chair for years 2017-2019. She received the 2016 Reviewer of the Year from The Qualitative Report. Dr. Wolgemuth has had research funding from the Institute of Education Sciences and the USF New Researcher Grant. For more information about Dr. Jennifer Wolgemuth, please see here.

---

Dr. Jolyn Blank is a former USF Instructional Faculty of the RISE Caribbean initiative and has worked in conjunction with RISE Caribbean Research Mentors and with the CERC team to provide qualitative research methods courses to emerging UWI researchers each summer at the UWI Cave Hill campus. As a former member of the RISE Caribbean Instructional Faculty, Dr. Blank developed course content and brought her expertise regarding applicability of research methods for the Caribbean context based on input from UWI Research Fellows and CERC research teams in the Caribbean about their methodological needs for undertaking research in the Caribbean region.

Dr. Blank’s research interests include arts and inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning and early childhood teacher education. Recent work has focused on understanding school micro-cultures, exploring early childhood teachers’ theories about what constitutes good teaching, and the personal, cultural, and institutional contexts that shape and reshape these perceptions.

For more information about Dr. Jolyn Blank, please see here.

---