Grad students
Current Graduate Students
Tracy Boone
Tracy Boone is beginning her fifth year as a PhD candidate at Penn State. She earned a BS degree in Secondary Mathematics Education from Lock Haven University, a MS in Mathematics Education from Penn State, and will earn her Supervisory Certificate in Curriculum and Supervison in May of 2009.
Prior to graduate school, Tracy was employed 12 years as a high school mathematics teacher in Southern Pennsylvania. Some of that time was spent as teaching undergraduate mathematics courses at Penn State Altoona. She spent 6 years as a member of the Grade 11 PSSA Advisory Committee, which included generating PSSA test items, range finding, and conducting professional development workshops for PDE and various Intermediate Units in Pennsylvania. Tracy was hired as the District Math Coach/ Mathematics Director for the Bald Eagle Area School District in August of 2008.
Tracy is currently working on her dissertation proposal. Her research interests are investigating in-service teachers understandings of traditional algebraic word problems (e.g., distance, coin, mixture, money, etc.). She is particularly interested in gaining a better understanding of the mathematics and student solution strategies teachers deem important as they plan and prepare lessons involving traditional algebra word problems.
Sue Feeley
Heather Godine
Heather Godine is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate at Penn State University. Her primary responsibility for this year will be serving as the instructor for the first of two methods classes for prospective secondary mathematics teachers. While at Penn State, she has participated in the Situations project and the Process project, both of which are examining mathematics knowledge for secondary mathematics teaching.
Prior to attending Penn State, she taught secondary mathematics at a public high school in Pennsylvania, where she designed and taught a discrete mathematics course, served as department chairperson, designed and implemented professional development for mathematics teachers, and advised a student leadership training program. In addition, Heather presented at state, regional and national practitioner conferences for mathematics teachers, and received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching in 2003 and National Board Certification in 2005. Since arriving at Penn State, she co-taught both a governor’s institute and a rural academy for mathematics teachers, served on a selection committee for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, authored lessons for NCTM’s Illuminations website, developed a unit for Math Resources’ Interactive School Mathematics, and reviewed manuscripts for the Mathematics Teacher.
Her research interest focuses on early secondary students’ reasoning about rate of change. Knowing more about students’ reasoning about rate of change could provide additional insight into how students develop understanding of the concept of rate of change and inform the development of mathematical tasks that could support students’ developing understanding of the concept of rate of change.
Maureen Grady
Duane Graysay
Duane Graysay is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Penn State University with emphasis in mathematics education, and as of May 2008 has just finished his second semester of classes. He is interested in studying secondary students’ mathematical thinking, particularly with relation to geometry and calculus.
During the past year he worked on the research conducted by the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning at Penn State and is currently engaged in developing a research project studying student’s interpretation of diagrams during problem-solving and proof.
Before beginning graduate studies Duane taught secondary mathematics for 11 years in Northern Virginia. He attained his Bachelor’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Penn State in 1995 and his Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction in 2006 from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Jan Green
Jan Green is currently in the dissertation phase of her program. She has just finished collecting the data for her dissertation and will begin analyzing it this fall. Her dissertation will focus on the algebraic understandings constructed by students who learned to solve algebra word problems via the use of diagram drawing.
Bill Harrington
Kim Johnson
Kim Johnson is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Penn State University with emphasis in mathematics education, and as of May 2008 has finished her second semester of classes. She is interested in studying the development multiplicative thinking in elementary and middle school students.
During the past year she has worked on research conducted by the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning at Penn State and is currently engaged in developing a research project studying 3rd-4th graders understandings of multiplication.
Before beginning graduate studies Kim taught secondary mathematics for 16 years at a girls boarding school in central Pennsylvania. She attained her Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1991 and her master’s degree in Mathematics education in 2006 both at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.
Shiv Karunakaran
Shiv Karunakaran is currently a third year PhD candidate in Curriculum and Instruction (focus on Mathematics Education) at PSU. He earned a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from Wabash College in 2002, and a Masters degree in Mathematics from Miami University of Ohio in 2004. His undergraduate thesis was on the development and applications of the Sylow Theorems in group theory. His mathematics research interests lie in the field of measure theory and his masters’ thesis involved the preservation of isometries in lp-spaces.
After getting his MS at Miami, Shiv decided to stay on for another two years, as an instructor of mathematics and statistics. It was during that period he realized his intense interest in how collegiate students learn mathematics. Also during this period, he designed a year long calculus course sequence that combined many aspects of the traditional pre-calculus and calculus-I courses. His dissertation will focus on collegiate mathematics students' interpretation of proof.
Donna Kinol
Donna Kinol is a 6th year Ph.D. candidate at Penn State. She has a B.S.Ed in secondary mathematics and an M.A. in mathematics, both from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Prior to graduate school, she taught secondary and undergraduate mathematics. Donna is interested in how elementary teachers develop and use their mathematics knowledge. She is currently completing a pilot study exploring what factors influence how pre-service elementary teachers learn the mathematics they will be expected to teach and how these factors interact.
Svetlana Konnova
Svetlana (Lana) Konnova is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Penn State University with an emphasis in mathematics education, and as of May 2008 has finished her first semester of classes. She is interested in studying the development of mathematical modeling projects for middle and high school students.
She attained her Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics from Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia. Working in several research institutes, she used knowledge of mathematics to solve problems in various scientific areas, concentrating mainly on mathematical physics, but also including biology and economics. Her first personal experience in teaching mathematics in the USA came while working at Riverside Community College in California. She is now interested in the study of enhancing the process of teaching and learning mathematics at school programs through the introduction of Applied mathematics.
Jana Lunt
Jana Lunt is currently working on her dissertation at Penn State. In her dissertation she is investigating how teacher knowledge of addition and subtraction word problems influences student understanding. Jana is beginning my fifth year and am hoping to finish summer 2009
Sue Peters
Sue Peters completed her Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in mathematics education in August 2009. While at Penn State, she conducted research with the Mid-Atlantic Center for Teaching and Learning, taught the last of three methods courses for preservice secondary mathematics teachers, supervised preservice secondary mathematics teachers in their middle-level field experience, and served as Assistant Editor for the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. Upon graduation, she joined the faculty of the Department of Teaching and learning at the University of Louisville
Sue’s research interests lie in the areas of teacher knowledge and statistics education. Her dissertation study, titled “Developing an Understanding of Variation: AP Statistics Teachers’ Perceptions and Recollections of Critical Moments,” examines the conceptions of statistical variation exhibited by secondary mathematics teachers who are recognized leaders in AP statistics. For those who exhibited robust understandings, she also examined their perceptions and recollections of activities and actions that contributed to their development of robust understandings of variation. She hopes to use the results of her dissertation to design and implement programs that enhance the development of secondary mathematics teachers’ statistical knowledge.
Cynthia Piez
Shari Reed
Shari Reed began her career in education with Pittsburgh Public Schools. She spent seven years teaching in a full-inclusion elementary classroom at fourth and fifth grades before spending several additional years in the role of Math Resource Teacher for the district. In 2002, Shari entered The Pennsylvania State University pursuing her doctorate in Mathematics Education. Becoming a Mid-Atlantic Fellow in 2004, Shari has finished her course work and is in the process of completing comprehensive exams and piloting a research proposal in the Fall Semester of 2008. Shari’s research interests are understanding and unraveling the relationship between elementary teachers’ beliefs on the nature of mathematics and their teaching of mathematics. Shari became the Elementary Mathematics Resource Teacher for Bellefonte Area School District in December of 2007.
Jeanne Shimizu
Jeanne Shimizu is a Mid-Atlantic Fellow at Penn State. She has an MSTM (Master of Science in Teaching Mathematics) from San Clara University and a BS in Mathematics from University of California, Davis.
Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, she taught for twenty-one years in Northern California--4 years in San Jose and 17 years in Citrus Heights, a suburb of Sacramento. During summers Jeanne worked on California’s Golden State Exam (GSE) as a member of the test development team for the High School Math (Algebra 2 and higher levels) Exam and with the GSE leadership team for scoring the open response test items. In addition, she had the pleasure of working for the California State University Sacramento Math Project as an instructor, and for the College Preparatory Math Program (CPM) in curriculum development and professional development. Her area of interest is in teacher knowledge. She is interested in understanding what is involved in using mathematical knowledge in the context of teaching Algebra 1. In particular, Jeanne is interested in studying the relationship between Algebra 1 teachers’ content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and their explanations of symbolic representations and manipulations.
Pat Sullivan
Pat Sullivan is presently working on his proposal with hopes of collecting data this next school year. His research interest involves understanding how symbol sense develops in a 9th grade CAS algebra course.
