Justin Bathon, Ph.D., Indiana University - Bloomington
Office: 111B DH
Email: justin.bathon@uky.edu
Phone: 859-257-7845
Dr. Bathon (vita in PDF) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies. He joined the faculty in 2008. Justin came from Indiana University - Bloomington where he earned his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and taught courses in educational law. Justin also has a Juris Doctor and Masters in Educational Leadership from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. Justin has legal and educational experience at the local, state, national & international levels, including time as a high school teacher in southern Illinois.
Justin's research explores (broadly) the intersections of education, law, and technology, with occasional tangents like educational leadership preparation infrastructure.
More information, links to recent pubs, and contact information can be found at Justin's homepage.
Justin blogs at The Edjurist and Education Recoded and tweets @edjurist. More such things: 
Lars G. Bjork, Ph.D., University of New Mexico
Office: 111D DH
Email: lbjor1@uky.edu
Phone: 859-257-2450
Dr. Björk, is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies at the University of Kentucky. Since 2004 he has served as a Co-director of the International Symposium on Educational Reform (ISER). In 2011, the Ministry of Education (PRC) appointed him as an adjunct professor in the National Training Center for Secondary School Principals (Shanghai). He was a Fulbright Scholar (2009) in Finland where he assisted in conducting the first national study of school superintendents. He was the founding Director of the Institute for Educational Research (IER) and the Center for Professional Development in the College of Education, University of Kentucky. He was the Co-Director of the University Council for Educational Administration’s Center for the Study of the Superintendence (1998-2008). Dr. Björk also served as a Senior Associate Editor of Educational Administration Quarterly (1999-2005) and presently is a member of the Editorial Boards of the South African Journal of Education, Journal of Thought, and the Journal of School Public Relations. He has co-edited several books including Higher Education Research and Public Policy (1988), Minorities in Higher Education (1994), and The New Superintendency: Advances in Research and Theories of School Management and Educational Policy (2001, with C. C. Brunner) and The Contemporary Superintendent: Preparation, Practice and Development (2005 with Theodore Kowalski). In addition, he has co-authored, The Study of the American Superintendency 2000: A look at the Superintendent of Education in the New Millennium (2000, with T. Glass and C.C. Brunner), The Superintendent as CEO: Standards-based Performance (2005-with J. Hoyle, T. Glass & L. Collier) and is a contributing author in The School Superintendent: Theory, Practice, and Cases (2005, Theodore Kowalski). In addition, he has served as guest editor for special issues including: Education and Urban Society (1993), “Minorities in Higher Education”; Educational Administration Quarterly (2000) “Women in the Superintendency”; and, The Journal of School Leadership (2003), “The Superintendent Shortage: Myth and Reality”. Dr. Björk has holds Ph.D. and Ed. S. Degrees in Educational Administration, Master of Arts Degree in Public Administration, A Master of Education Degree in Secondary Education and a Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of New Mexico. In addition to serving as a consultant to Universities in the United States, Europe and China, school districts, state governments, national associations, and international agencies. He has been a member of advisory, coordinating committees, and task forces in the United States Department of Education and presented keynote addresses at international conferences on educational leadership.
His areas of academic interest and expertise include leadership, the superintendency, organizational change, educational reform, organizational theory, school-university collaboration, and qualitative research methodology.
Tricia Browne-Ferrigno,Ph.D., University of Colorado at Denver
Office: 111C DH
Email: tricia.ferigno@uky.edu
Phone: 859-257-5504
Dr. Tricia Browne-Ferrigno (vita in PDF) is an associate professor who joined the faculty in August 2001 as a first-year assistant professor. She earned a PhD in Educational Leadership and Innovation from the University of Colorado at Denver, MA in Special Education/Gifted from the University of South Florida, and BA in Secondary Mathematics Education from Florida State University. Dr. Browne-Ferrigno’s current research foci include preservice and continuing leadership preparation, educational reform and school improvement, faculty mentoring in higher education, and the education doctorate. She has also investigated teacher quality, gifted underachievement, and mathematics education issues.
In addition to her regular responsibilities, she directed two sponsored projects. The Principals Excellence Program, an advanced professional development initiative for administrator-certified educators in Pike County (Kentucky), was supported by a grant from the US Department of Education School Leadership Development Program and is featured in Innovative Pathways to School Leadership and the e-Lead initiative. The Team Development for Instructional Leadership project, an initiative to improve student learning in rural high schools, was supported by a grant from the US Department of Education Teacher Quality Program administered by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.
Dr. Browne-Ferrigno is currently serving a three-year term as Chair of the AERA Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership SIG. She is a founding member of the UCEA/LTEL-SIG Taskforce on Evaluating Educational Leadership Preparation Programs and a contributor to several SREB School Leadership Curriculum Modules. She is a member of the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Research on Leadership Education, peer reviewer for the Leadership and Policy in Schools, and Teacher Development, and former Associate Editor for Educational Administration Quarterly.
Prior to entering higher education, Dr. Browne-Ferrigno was a teacher leader in secondary mathematics and gifted education at H. B. Plant High School in Tampa, Florida, a twice-recognized US Department of Education Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. From 1991 to 1993 she served as the National Consultant Secondary Mathematics for ScottForesman, providing support for the adoption and implementation of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP) textbook series.
J. John Harris III, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Office: 129 TEB
Email: edejjh@uky.edu
Telephone: 859-257-6169
Dr. J. John Harris III (vita) joined the faculty in 1990 upon becoming Dean of the College of Education. He came to Lexington from Cleveland, Ohio where he was Dean of the College of Education at Cleveland State University. Dr. Harris' previous experience includes serving as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University and as Director of the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education (CUME) at Indiana University; Assistant Professor of Education at Pennsylvania State University; and serving as a teacher, guidance counselor, and assistant principal for the Detroit Public Schools.
Dr. Harris holds the Associate in Arts degree from Highland Park College in Michigan, a B.S. from Wayne State University in Detroit, and an M.S. from the University of Michigan. His areas of academic interest and expertise include education law, urban and multicultural education, and gifted education. His current research focuses on student underachievement and educational law incident to the study of urban and multicultural education.
Melissa Johnston, Ph.D., Florida State University
Office: 350 Little Library Building
Email: melissa.johnston@uky.edu
Telephone: 859-257-4117
Dr. Melissa P. Johnston (vita in pdf) is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed with the School of Library and Information Science and the Department of Educational Leadership Studies. She joined the University of Kentucky faculty in August 2011.
Dr. Johnston earned a Bachelor’s degree in English from The University of Georgia in 1993 and a Master’s of Education in Instructional Technology from The University of Georgia in 1996. She worked as a school librarian for 12 years in Georgia before enrolling in the doctoral program at Florida State University. She completed her PhD at FSU’s School of Library & Information Studies where she also worked as a research fellow at The Partnerships Advancing Library Media (PALM) Center. She is actively involved in the American Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians through serving in various leadership and elected positions and also serves on The Library of Congress Professional Development for Educators Review Committee. Johnston has published in a variety of journals that focus on school library issues and her research interests include the school librarian as a leader, the school librarian’s role in technology integration, and the education of future school librarians.
Wayne D. Lewis, Ph.D., North Carolina State University
Office: 13 DH
Email: wayne.lewis@uky.edu
Telephone: 859-257-2540
Dr. Wayne D. Lewis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies at the University of Kentucky. Wayne teaches courses in educational leadership, school-community relations, and the politics of education. His current research is in the areas of school-community relations, the politics of education, and school-based leadership. Wayne completed undergraduate studies at Loyola University New Orleans, and completed a teacher education program at the University of New Orleans. He earned an M.A. at the University of Akron in the Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies, and a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.
Scott McLeod, Ph.D., University of Iowa
Office: 11 DH
Email: mcleod@uky.edu
Telephone: 707-722-7853
Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. He also is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and was a co-creator of the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). He has received numerous national awards for his technology leadership work, including recognitions from the cable industry, Phi Delta Kappa, and the National School Boards Association. In Spring 2011 he was a Visiting Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Dr. McLeod blogs regularly about technology leadership issues at Dangerously Irrelevant, Mind Dump, and Education Recoded and occasionally at The Huffington Post.
John B. Nash, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Office: 15 DH
Email: john.nash@uky.edu
Telephone: 859-257-2570
John B. Nash is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies. He teaches a range of courses on school reform, design thinking and research methods. His current research agenda investigates how technology, innovation and policy interact and influence schools and educators in different contexts.
Professor Nash is the former associate director for evaluation at the Stanford Center for Innovations (SCIL), where he conducted applied research on improving program evaluation in grant-funded initiatives. He was also a grantmaker for the Wallenberg Global Learning Network, an arm of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation of Stockholm, Sweden, focused on enhancing learning outcomes through educational technology in the U.S., Sweden and Germany.
Prior to his work at SCIL he served as the Associate Director of Assessment and Research at the Stanford Learning Laboratory, where he directed an interdisciplinary team of research scientists examining the effects of innovative technologies on learning. Prior to moving to Stanford, Professor Nash was a member of the graduate faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso in the department of Educational Leadership and Foundations.
Jayson W. Richardson, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Office: 21 DH
Email: jayson.richardson@uky.edu
Phone: 859-257-1323
Dr. Jayson Richardson is an assistant professor in the Deparment of Educational Leadership Studies. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science in mathematics education with a minor in Spanish from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. After teaching mathematics on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and in inner-city Indianapolis, he attended Indiana University –Bloomington and earned a Master’s of Science degree in curriculum and instruction with a focus on international and intercultural education. After living in London for a few years and extensive global travel, he earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration with a focus on comparative and international development education from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
