Project MALES is excited to welcome our newest Faculty and Research Affiliates: Dr. Roderick L. Carey, Dr. Brian L. McGowan, Dr. Wilson K. Okello, Dr. Shawn S. Savage, Dr. Pietro A. Sasso, and Dr. Adriana Villavicencio.
Roderick L. Carey, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Delaware. His current interdisciplinary research serves to make sense of the school experiences of black and Latino adolescent boys and young men in urban contexts, drawing upon critical theories, sociological tools, and constructs from developmental psychology. Dr. Carey employs primarily qualitative approaches in researching and writing about both macro and micro issues related to families and schools, teacher education, professional development for equity, and the ways black and Latino adolescent boys and young men conceptualize their post-secondary school futures and enact college-going processes.
Brian L. McGowan’s, Ph.D., research focuses are on gender, race, and postsecondary educational outcomes; and college teaching and learning. A critical constructivist, McGowan’s interdisciplinary research is driven by questions related to Black men and faculty experiences in higher education. He is best known for his contributions to the college student development literature regarding the social context of identity and Black men’s interpersonal relationships. His current scholarship unearths the varied sociocultural factors that influence Black men’s (students and faculty) learning experiences in multiple disciplinary contexts including STEM.
Wilson K. Okello, Ph.D., is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Watson College of Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Bridging the artist-scholar divide, Dr. Okello draws on Black feminist theories to think about the relationship between history, the body, and epistemology, anti-Blackness in education, critical masculinities, and anti-deficit curriculum and pedagogy. Dr. Okello’s performance work engages embodied and creative methodologies to think about the health and survival of Black people in the afterlife of white supremacy. An interdisciplinary scholar who grapples with Africana/Black, literary, feminist, and performance studies to press upon education, his work has been published in leading venues such as the Journal of College Student Development, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and the Review of Higher Education. Additionally, he has presented his work in various educational spaces, internationally and in the domestic United States, such as ASHE, AESA, AERA, ACPA, and the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry. Extending his scholarship and illustrating his commitment to publicly engaged praxis, he is currently the Scholar-In-Residence for the Coalition on Men and Masculinities with ACPA and a Faculty-In-Residence with DC Virgo Preparatory Academy. He has delivered over 100 invited keynotes/lectures/presentations, from Rhode Island to California.
Shawn S. Savage, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction for Equity in WCE’s Department of Educational Leadership. Dr. Savage has over 10 years of experience in K-12 and Higher Education—both as an academic and student affairs professional. A diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice scholar-practitioner, Dr. Savage’s research investigates issues of access, equity, and justice in K-12, teacher education, and higher education. He especially studies the experiences of racially minoritized males across their educational and professional lives—with a specific focus on Black males—using justice-centered qualitative research approaches. Importantly, his work is undergirded by Afrocentricity and explores the experiences of, and supports the well-being of Black and other people who are minoritized.
Pietro A. Sasso, Ph.D., Dr. Pietro A. Sasso is a graduate faculty member in Educational Leadership at Stephen F. Austin State University. His research amplifies the voices of college students through interrogating the themes of the college experience, student success, and educational equity in co-curricular spaces. He has over 60 scholarly publications including 10 co-edited textbooks and 80 conference presentations. He has been recognized for his research with awards from the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors (AFA). He is currently a faculty research fellow with the Penn State University Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity & Sorority Research and Reform.
Adriana Villavicencio, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is focused on K-12 educational policy and school practice that deepens or disrupt inequities for minoritized communities of students and families. For nearly a decade, she conducted research at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at NYU—a Research-Practice Partnership with the NYC Department of Education (DOE). As Deputy Director of the Research Alliance, she helped shape the organization’s research agenda, obtained over $9 million in external grants, developed relationships with external partners, and led many of the organization’s large-scale mixed-method research projects focused on the NYC school system. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
For more information about our Faculty and Research Affiliates and our Research Institute please visit our web page.
