SOE announces three new faculty members joining CSHPE, CPEP, and Educational Studies

Dr. Charles Davis will be joining the School of Education as an Assistant Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Davis was an Assistant Professor of Clinical Education in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California and the Chief Strategy Officer and Director of Research of the USC Race and Equity Center. While at USC, Dr. Davis was recognized as Faculty Member of the Year by the USC Rossier Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs Network and Outstanding Faculty Member by the USC Rossier Student Organization.

His current research and teaching broadly focus on issues race and racism, systems of oppression, and structures of domination in U.S. higher education and its social contexts. In particular, his ethnographic work examines contemporary student activism at the intersections of campus and community, specifically focusing on the mobilization of resources and tactical repertoires used to achieve movement goals. He has received funding support from the Lumina Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.

In addition to publishing in top peer-reviewed academic journals, Dr. Davis recently co-edited Student Activism, Politics, and Campus Climate in Higher Education as well as hosted and produced a long-form documentary about the structural barriers facing Black youth in education and innovative solutions to support their success. Dr. Davis’ work has been featured by leading national news outlets, cited in Amicus Curiae briefs in the Fisher v. University of Texas and the SFFA v. Harvard Supreme Court cases, and was recently recognized by Diverse Issues of Higher Education where he was named a 2020 Emerging Scholar.

Dr. Davis earned his doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Arizona and holds master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and Florida State University.

Dr. Jamaal Sharif Matthews will be joining the School of Education as an Associate Professor in Educational Studies and the Combined Program in Education and Psychology. He comes to us from Montclair State University in New Jersey where he was an Associate Professor of Educational Foundations.

Born and raised in Harlem NYC, Dr. Matthews’ research interests are grounded in his experiences as a middle school mathematics teacher in The Bronx. His research focuses on achievement motivation during adolescence and motivation in mathematics specifically. His work addresses how race, teacher pedagogy, and the sociopolitical context shape students’ beliefs about their abilities in and value of mathematics. He also applies a critical race perspective on the psychological processes that undergird adaptive and healthy school functioning for Black American and Latinx adolescents in urban schools.

His research has powerful implications for public scholarship, counseling, and out-of-school youth interventions, as evidenced through his youth mentorship program, T.H.R.E.A.D.S (Truth, Honor, Respect, Education and Development of Self; threadsmentorship.com). Dr. Matthews’ teaching integrates critical and cultural perspectives into traditional paradigms in educational psychology and he has taught a number of courses related to equity and inclusion in urban education, motivation in marginalized youth, and adolescent development.

Dr. Matthews is a recipient of multiple national awards, including outstanding dissertation awards from the American Psychological Association (APA) and ProQuest. Further, he was awarded the APA Early Career Educational Psychology Research Award, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship; and the Best Article Award from Educational Psychologist in 2018 for his article “Black and Belonging in School.” Dr. Matthews has secured extramural funding through a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering, and the Mindset Scholars Network in cooperation with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Rosemary (Rosie) Perez will be joining the School of Education as an Associate Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. She comes to us from the Iowa State University School of Education where she was an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs, and she brings six years of professional work experience in university student affairs divisions.

Her scholarship leverages the strengths of student development and organizational theories to explore individual and organizational learning and development in collegiate contexts. Across her program of research and her teaching, she explores the tensions between structure and agency, and how power, privilege, and oppression affect individuals and groups within higher education.

She is committed to empowering individuals and communities as we work towards creating a more equitable and just society, as evidenced by her role on the leadership team for the Education for Social Justice Certificate at Iowa State. This university-wide certificate provides students the opportunity to engage in thoughtful, rigorous, and sustained inquiry into social inequalities and social justice praxis in P- 20 classrooms, schools, and educational systems.

In recognition of her engagement with Students of Color and efforts to improve their experiences on campus, she received the 2016 Faculty/Staff Change Agent Award from the Iowa State University Multicultural Student Affairs office. In addition, she was named an Emerging Scholar in 2017 and Diamond Honoree in 2020 by ACPA- College Student Educators International, a professional association for student affairs educators.