Research, Inclusion & Innovation Speaker Series
As part of ongoing efforts to promote research culture and inclusive excellence by the College of Professional Education, COPE presents the annual Research, Inclusion & Innovation Speaker Series. The lineup for this year's series includes speakers with wide-ranging backgrounds and topics so do not miss out on the right experience(s) for you.
Register below for the Zoom session(s) you would like to attend.
Speaker Series Lineup
Spring 2024

January 25, 2024 - 12 p.m.
Lee Warren Brown, PhD
Associate Professor, Texas Woman's University
Director of Research, College of Business
Navigating the AI Frontier: Enhancing Education with Generative Technologies
Stoddard Hall 202-A
The teaching interests of Lee Warren Brown, PhD, focus primarily on firm strategy. His classes discuss how firm decision makers navigate the market through analysis of both the internal and external environment, formulating strategies and finally implementing strategies.
His research examines nonmarket strategies of firms. Brown studies firm interactions with government and the firm performance implications of those actions. His current projects explore firm lobbying behaviors, foreign firm’s cross-border lobbying behaviors in the US and CEO political activism.
In addition, his secondary research stream focuses on CEO ethical leadership in organizations.

February 28, 2024 - 11:30 a.m.
Africa, S. Hands, PhD
Assistant Professor, University at Buffalo
Supporting College Literacy in Marginalized Communities
Africa S. Hands, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Science at University at Buffalo.
Her research focuses on information access within marginalized and underserved communities and the professional education of library and information science students. Her work has been published in the Journal for Education of Library and Information Science, Education for Information, and Information and Learning Sciences.
She holds a PhD from Queensland University of Technology and an MLIS from San José State University. Before joining the faculty at University at Buffalo, she was an assistant professor at East Carolina University.
Fall 2023

November 28, 2023 - 1 p.m.
Lisa Goran, PhD, CCC-SLP
Director of Teacher Education and Undergraduate Studies, Special Education, University of Missouri
David F. Bateman, PhD
Principal Researcher, American Institutes for Research
Related Services: What They Are, Who Provides Them, and Why That Matters
Lisa Goran, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an associate teaching professor at the University of Missouri where she serves as the Director of Teacher Education and Director of Undergraduate Studies. A Speech-Language Pathologist and a Special Educator, she has worked in school, clinical, and private practice classroom settings.
Goran earned a PhD in special education from the University of Missouri and is active in professional organizations related to speech-language pathology, special education and teacher education.
She recently co-authored "Related Services in Special Education: Working Together as a Team," and has co-authored chapters in multiple books. Additionally, Goran hosts a podcast, "Think Aloud with Dr. G."
David Bateman, PhD, is a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research, and Professor Emeritus at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. As a former due process hearing officer for Pennsylvania for hundreds of hearings, he assists school districts in providing appropriate supports for students with disabilities and preventing and recovering from due process hearings. He has been an administrator and classroom teacher. Bateman earned a PhD in special education from the University of Kansas.
A frequent keynote speaker, Bateman has been a hearing officer or consultant on over 1,005 special education lawsuits, and recently co-authored multiple books. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Education to develop a training module for administrators on legally compliant IEPs and co-authors the special education legal blog spedlawblog.com.
2022-23 Speakers
- Donald Easton-Brooks, PhD: Equity in Education
- Michael J. Kennedy, PhD: Building Declarative, Procedural, and Conditional Knowledge: The Elusive Pursuit of All Three
- Natalie Danner, PhD: Joyful Inclusion in Montessori Education
- Elizabeth Murakami, PhD: Faculty Development in the Era of Equity and Inclusion
- Brenda Barrio, PhD: Addressing Disproportionality in Special Education through a Social Justice Lens
- Anne Ittner, PhD: Using Design-Based Research to Advance Social Presence in Online Learning Communities
2021-22 Speakers
- Glenda Flores, PhD: A look at Latina Teachers - Creating Careers and Guarding Culture
- Jorge Burmicky, PhD: Rethinking Leadership by Design - A Competency-Based Framework for Developing Future Leaders in Higher Education
- Cristina Huertas, PhD: Educational Technology and Pluriliteracies Applied to Bilingual Education - A Step Further from the CLIL Approach
- Joanna Wong, PhD: Teacher Inquiry into Asset-Based Literacy Pedagogy for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners
- Zhongfeng Tian, PhD: Challenging the “Dual” - Designing Translanguaging Spaces in a Mandarin-English Dual Language Bilingual Education Program
- Brittany Frieson, PhD: Hear Our Truths - The Power of Multilingual Black Girls' Literacies
- Julio Ruiz, PhD: The IMAS Project - An innovative approach for improving mathematical competence and achieving student success
- Sarah Rodriguez, PhD: Beyond Broadening Participation - Implementing Identity Development and Facilitating Success for Latina/o/x students in STEM
- Danny Martinez, PhD: Languaging in Solidarity - Black and Latinx Youth Ingenuity in Everyday Classroom Interactions
Page last updated 7:53 AM, December 2, 2023