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Goodlad Institute for Educational Renewal

Our Team

The Goodlad Institute is made up of research scholars, faculty instructors, artists, designers, students, and administrators who work together toward equity in education.

Dr. Carrie Tzou, Director

Carrie Tzou is a professor in science education in the School of Educational Studies and a PI in the Goodlad Institute. She holds a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University and an M.S. in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in science education from Vanderbilt University. Her research has three major components, all connected with an interest in addressing issues of culture, identity, and equity in science and environmental science learning: 1) ethnographic work to understand how youth and their communities are positioned and position themselves through place-based education, 2) design-based research to design curricula to bring youths’ out of school science and cultural practices into science and environmental science teaching and learning, and 3) research and design of elementary and secondary preservice teacher education that explores how to orient preservice teachers to the sophisticated learning and identities that their students construct both in and out of school in order to make science more accessible to all of their students.

Dr. Tom Bellamy

Tom Bellamy is professor emeritus of Education at the University of Washington Bothell and the founding and former director of the Goodlad Insitute. His 50 years of experience in education include work as a special education teacher, university faculty member, research center director, federal program executive, and university administrator. Tom has developed educational leadership programs for principal preparation and preparation of local special education administrators and is currently leading two leadership programs at UW Bothell, ECSEL and AIMS (see page 9). His recent scholarly work focuses on school leadership and change and has resulted in two books and several articles on the principalship.  

Dr. Yue Bian

Yue is an assistant professor in the School of Educational Studies at UW Bothell. Her scholarship explores effective teacher education practices that prepare all teachers to be linguistically and culturally responsive to emergent multilingual students in formal and informal learning contexts. As a transnational and bilingual scholar, Dr. Bian also attends to the lived experience of prospective and practicing teachers and teacher educators from transnational and multilingual backgrounds, particularly those who are first-generation immigrants.

Dr. Allison Hintz

Allison Hintz is an associate professor in the School of Educational Studies at UW Bothell. Her research and teaching focus on mathematics education. She studies teaching and learning alongside partners in formal and informal educational settings and focuses on beliefs and practices that support all children and families in lively mathematics learning. She is co-author of Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions.

Kellie Holden, Administrator

Kellie is the administrator for program operations in the Goodlad Institute. She serves many functions within the organization including overseeing all aspects of the Institute’s fiscal affairs, managing all grant pre- and post-award activities, and coordinating faculty effort distributions. She applies wide-ranging knowledge of funding agency requirements and university regulations to ensure compliance and effective management of the Institute’s projects.

Dr. Veronica Cassone McGowan

Veronica is a research scientist and instructor at UW Bothell. She received her doctorate in Learning Sciences and Human Development from the UW Seattle where she worked as a graduate researcher for the Institute for Math and Science Education and the LIFE Center. Her research focuses on broadening participation in STEM fields, particularly K-12 engineering and computational modeling, with a focus on connecting learning across settings in ways that incorporate learners’ everyday interests, identities and community knowledges as foundations for sociotechnical learning.

Dr. Natasha Hakimali Merchant

Natasha Hakimali Merchant is an assistant professor of multicultural and social studies education at UW Bothell where she teaches courses in the social foundations of education as well as advanced courses in critical educational change. Her research interests revolve around the ways Islam is taught in secondary social studies contexts. Influenced by traditions of critical ethnographies, she seeks to understand the experiences of Muslim students as they encounter themelseves as subjects in the classroom as well as the practices of justice-oriented teachers who seek to teach against Islamophobia. 

Amy Pitt

Amy is the aministrative assistant in the Goodlad Institute and provides support to all grant projects. She is responsible for routine fiscal activities including budget reconciliation, expense reports, reimbursements, and coordinating orders for project materials.  Amy’s role requires knowledge of University systems and adherence to the UW records retention policies. 

William Rasplica

William (Bill) has extensive experience in district-wide (PK-12) and school-based implementation of integrated MTSS, including the areas of universal screening, multi-level prevention systems, progress monitoring, and data-based decision making. Bill provides overall program coordination for both of the Institute’s leadership programs: the ECSEL Program and the newly awarded AIMS Project. Bill retired after 18 years serving as the Executive Director of Learning Support Services for the Franklin Pierce Schools in Tacoma, WA.

Dr. Antony T. Smith

Antony, an associate professor in the School of Educational Studies at UW Bothell, has a research focus on the intersection of reading and mathematics and how exploring children’s literature can help deepen comprehension, develop vocabulary knowledge, and increase motivation and engagement for students to become lifelong readers.
Elizabeth Starks headshot

Elizabeth Starks, Lead Designer

Elizabeth Starks (Shiwi/Diné) is an artist, developer, and education researcher with a background in Software-driven Systems Design, Museum Studies, and Studio Art. She is a Research Scientist at OpenSTEM research group at University of Washington Bothell. While living in Los Angeles as an artist, she imagined showing her contemporary work in museums only to see herself represented behind glass on display next to dinosaurs. This led her to pursue equity and innovation through museums, technology, and education. She co-designs with stakeholders to understand and communicate complex ideas through creative visual methods. She holds a Master’s degree in Software-Driven Systems Design, a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies, and a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art.

Dr. Blakely Tsurusaki

Blakely is a senior research scientist and PI in the Open STEM Research Group at UW Bothell with expertise in curriculum development, professional development, culturally relevant teaching and environmental education and has experience teaching both formal and informal K-12 STEM education. She holds a Ph.D. in Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University, an M.Ed. in Science Education from the University of Georgia, and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Puget Sound. Her research interests include how to better make connections between students’ everyday lives and school science, identity, engagement and equity issues in education, and environmental literacy.

Dr. Jordan Sherry-Wagner

Jordan is a postdoctoral scholar on the Learning in Places project who holds a PhD in Education from the University of Washington. Coming to the work with a background in psychology, philosophy, and early childhood education, his research draws upon participatory design based methods to better understand how dynamics of culture, development, and identity mediate learning in early place-based education. Specifically, he studies the role of ethical speculation in supporting sophisticated socioecological inquiry, alongside pedagogical approaches that cultivate educators’ attunement to diverse forms of sensemaking to develop their capacities for ethical pedagogical mediation. Prior to his doctoral training Jordan received his Master’s in Education while working both as a curriculum specialist at the Childcare Quality and Early Learning Center and also founding Co-Director of a mixed-age family childcare center where he served for over a decade.

Project Alumni

Theresa Horstman, Wendy Iwaszuk, Brad Portin, Nancy Price, Gavin Tierney, Alice Tsoodle