Mark Tucker, ARPE
Mark Tucker joins the College of Education full-time after spending several years with the Interwork Institute, where he also taught part-time in the ARPE department. Prior to joining the staff at the Interwork Institute, Mark worked as Program Coordinator for a Southern California-based non-profit agency providing case management, crisis counseling, and vocational planning services. His areas of research interest include examining the relationships between individual, contextual, or case-service factors and vocational rehabilitation outcomes of transition-age youth and adults with disabilities. Mark is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor; he holds a Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. in Human Rehabilitation from the University of Northern Colorado.Nellie Tran, CSP
Nellie Tran, Ph.D. (University of Illinois, Chicago 2010) Dr. Tran is a community psychologist specializing in the study of subtle forms of discrimination (i.e., microaggressions, racial color-blindness), especially pertaining to race and gender. She is particularly interested in understanding which biases exist in different contexts, how people adapt to them, and how best to change environments to reduce and buffer people from the impact of subtle biases. Her current projects explore the impact of subtle biases on women in the STEM disciplines, the effect of microaggressions on U.S.-born Asian Americans, how school/classroom norms influence the way students think about and understand race.Laura Owen, CSP
Laura comes to SDSU from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her role as an assistant professor in school counseling, she will serve as the Director of College and Career Readiness, a new division in the Center for Excellence in School Counseling and Leadership (CESCaL). Prior to moving to higher ed, Laura was a high school counselor, district school counseling supervisor, and a writer and co-principal investigator on two US Department of Education Elementary and Secondary School Counseling grants. Laura’s dissertation looked at the U.S. Department of Education’s FAFSA Completion Pilot Project and examined the influence of school counselor outreach on FAFSA completion and college enrollment. Since 2012, she has worked with several large urban school districts across the US to evaluate the impact of individualized school counselor outreach on students on time college matriculation. Her current research looks at interventions to address the summer melt and the influence of customized and personalized text messages on FAFSA completion and college enrollment. She was just awarded an IES grant to expand her research to a national sample.Arianne Miller, CSP
Arianne E. Miller earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Adelphi University in 2008. She completed a pre-doctoral internship at the Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology at Boston University Medical School and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School/ Boston Children’s Hospital. Prior to coming to SDSU she held positions as a Lecturer in Psychology and Critical Gender Studies at UCSD; a Staff Psychologist at Fenway Health, a LGBT health center in Boston; and a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Her areas of research include the use of race and gender in the phenomenon known as "Gaydar," the relationship between beliefs about gender roles and how people conceptualize sexual orientation, and the improvement of self-care practices among clinicians and underserved communities. Dr. Miller is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with specialties in Multicultural and LGBTQ Psychology, Adolescence, and Eating Disorders. She is interested in the intersections of race, gender and sexuality wherever they may be found; food politics and obesity; and how to reduce stigma about mental illness and psychotherapy. As a native New Yorker, Dr. Miller never imagined moving to California, owning a boogie board or being well on her way to becoming “outdoorsy.”Sarah Rieth, CFD
Sarah R. Rieth is joining the Child and Family Development department from the Psychiatry Department at UCSD. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the Autism Intervention Research Program at UCSD in 2012, with a focus in adapting evidence-based practices for children with autism for community environments. Her current research areas include long-term influences of early intervention, active ingredients across treatment approaches for children with autism, and the promotion of social-emotional skills in early development. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, outdoor activities, and traveling.Alyson Shapiro, CFD
Alyson Shapiro received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Washington under the direction of Dr. John Gottman, and then received post-doctoral training in the area of Infant Mental Health under the direction of Dr. Susan Spieker at the Barnard Center for Infant mental Health and Development at the University of Washington. Alyson also hasseveral years of experience teaching, mentoring students, and conducting research in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. Alyson aims to promote the wellbeing of infants, children, couples, and families through: 1) conducting and disseminating high-quality, application-relevant research; 2) teaching in the university setting; and 3) translating research findings for practitioners, educators, students, and parents. Alyson fosters transdisciplinary collaborative relationships and utilize multiple methodological approaches to further this goal. The focus of Alyson’s research is on family dynamics around the transition to parenthood period, and includes a focus on both high and low risk families. This dual focus enables a more comprehensive understanding of issues that affect infant mental health, family dynamics, couple relationships, and human development.Melissa Soto, STE
Dr. Melissa Soto joins the School of Teacher Education as a new mathematics educator. Dr. Soto earned her PhD in mathematics education at UC Davis, where she was advised by Dr. Rebecca Ambrose, a former STE faculty member. Melissa earned her BA in Elementary Education at the University of North Florida and MEd in Mathematics Education at the University of Central Florida. She holds Florida teaching credentials in elementary education (K-6) and mathematics education (grades 5-9), and is bilingual in English and Spanish. She has taught third and fifth grade in Florida. She also is an experienced professional development leader, conducting numerous sessions on Cognitively Guided Instruction for elementary teachers, and has participated in funded projects and served as a TA at UC Davis. Her research focuses on integrating mobile learning using screencasts as a formative assessment tool for mathematical explanations/reasoning. She has found that the use of screencasts has the potential to transform the learning environment by allowing teachers to gain more insight into their students’ mathematical thinking and encouraging students to reflect on their thinking. When Dr. Soto is not interviewing young math students or working with pre- and inservice teachers, she seeks out travel adventures. Her latest travel experience involved teaching Spanish to Arabic speakers in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
