8 Boilermaker Educator faculty to retire in December ‘24

Lynn Bryan joined the College of Education on Aug. 15, 2005, has served 19 years and is jointed appointed as professor of science education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the College of Science’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. She began her career in science education as a high school physics teacher and since then has devoted her career to working with K-16 science teachers to bring innovative practices and cutting-edge science content into pre-college classrooms. Bryan’s research focuses on science teacher learning, particularly teachers’ development and enhancement of professional knowledge and skills for teaching science using instructionally innovative, contemporary approaches to address timely, reform-oriented science/STEM content and practices: teaching science through meaningful integration of engineering design (integrated STEM); designing modeling-based, inquiry science instruction; and incorporating nanoscale science and technology in Grades 6-12 science.

During her career, Bryan been PI or Co-PI on over $20 million in external funding for her projects. She is an internationally recognized scholar in science teacher education and has received numerous awards and professional appointments, including being named a 2024 Fellow of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) and serving as its past president. Bryan was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar (2012) and a Distinguished Women Scholar (2015). Most recently, she was appointed to the board of directors for the new Grand Universe Space Science Institute, the non-profit arm of Indiana’s new Grand Universe Science & Space Experience Campus planned for Westfield, Ind.

Jim Greenan started in the College of Education on July 1, 1985, is in his 40th year of service at Purdue, and is the second longest currently serving faculty member in the College. He is the chair and professor of the College’s Career and Technical Education program area and the CTE Director license program. Prior to coming to Purdue, he was at SUNY College Buffalo; Bowling Green State University; University of Minnesota, and University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. 

Greenan is the founder and director of and an instructor in the Leadership Development Program (LDP) in Career and Technical Education (CTE). For more than 35 years, the College has offered this resource to teachers, counselors, and administrators with six content areas available. To better meet the needs of today’s professional educators, these professional development courses, seminars, and internships are now available as 9-credit, online graduate certificates.  

Greenan’s programs of research include special need populations in CTE and the workforce, and Generalizable skills instruction in CTE and the workforce.

“Jim’s career has been his passion and became what many told him not to let it turn into, his hobby,” said Heather Prough, his administrative assistant. “He put his heart and soul into teaching and working with those who cared about and valued Career and Technical Education.”

Among many other awards, Greenan received the College’s Department of Curriculum & Instruction Outstanding Faculty Engagement Award (2017); was named an “Indiana CTE Legendary Leader” for his extraordinary contributions to Career and Technical Education, Indiana Association for Career and Technical Education Conference (2015); and was a 2019 national finalist for the Postsecondary Teacher of the Year from the Indiana Association for Career and Technical Education, Region III. In 1987, Jim received the first  Outstanding Research Program Award from the Special Needs Division/American  Vocational Association and the National Association of Vocational Education Special Needs Personnel.

Timothy Newby joined the College on August 15, 1984, and is a professor in the Learning Design and Technology program area. With 40 years of service, he is our longest currently serving faculty member. His research focuses on learning and motivation, instructional strategies, the use of technology, and particularly the impact of digital badges on learning and motivation in post-secondary education. He has published over 70 research articles and 16 books.

Newby is a fellow of the Purdue University Teaching Academy. He has taught online, hybrid, and face-to-face undergraduate and graduate courses. He was instrumental in developing the College of Education’s online master’s program in Learning Design and Technology, which has reached thousands of educators. As the primary investigator he worked closely with a team of LDT faculty to create the comprehensive Online and Blended Teaching Hub, providing resources for Indiana teachers who teach remotely and/or integrate educational technologies in the classroom. 

“The pandemic forced us to look at alternative ways to teach and impact students,” he said. “With what we have learned from that common experience, we have created this resource hub that will allow teachers to be more effective whether we live in a time of a pandemic or not.”

JoAnn Phillion started in the College on Aug. 16, 1999 and has been here for 25 years. She is a professor of Curriculum Studies. Before joining Purdue, Phillion served as a visiting professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) in Hong Kong and returned there as an Advisory Professor from 2007-2010, 2012, and again in 2012, each time returning to Purdue.

Since 2006, Phillion engaged in research on the College of Education Honduras study abroad program, focusing primarily on the preparation of socially aware educators, and the roles of the concepts of service and service-learning play in that preparation. She continued her work in international education and received the Purdue Engagement Award in 2024 for her efforts as a Service-Learning Fellow for coordinating the College’s Honduras study abroad program.

Phillion has made significant contributions to the field of education through her research and publications. Her book, Narrative Inquiry in a Multicultural Landscape: Multicultural Teaching and Learning (2002), explores the use of narrative inquiry to gain a deeper understanding of multicultural education. She also co-edited The Sage Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction (2008) with F. Michael Connelly and Ming Fang He.

Marilyn Hirth joined the College on Aug. 17, 1992, and has served for 32 years. She is an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Before coming to Purdue, she taught special education and served as a director/supervisor of special education in Brownsville, TN, and was an assistant professor at the University of Memphis. 

Her research interests include P-12 school finance-research projects associated with equity and adequacy of funding at the state, local, and intradistrict levels; school business management problems at the building and district levels; policy issues related to finance, leadership, and management of the educational organization. Among other awards, she was named to Purdue’s Book of Great Teachers (2008), received the College’s Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award three times (2009, 2012, 2014), and the Department of Educational Studies Outstanding Achievement in Learning Award five times (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).  She has chaired 100 PhD dissertations during her career.

P. Youli Mantzicopoulos-James started in the College on Aug. 13, 1990, and has served for 34 years. She is a professor of Educational Psychology & Research Methodology. Originally from Greece, she earned her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to Purdue, she served as Research Psychologist at The Child Center in Kentfield, CA, and as a lecturer at California State University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Her interests include early personal-social development and learning in diverse environments. Her research has examined the effectiveness of early grade-retention practices, the development of self-competence beliefs, early teacher-child relationships, and shared-reading of informational texts at home and school. Most recently, her work has focused on observation measures of instruction as indicators of effective teaching.

Her research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S Department of Education. In 2010, she received the award for most significant research publication (co-authored with Helen Patrick and Ala Samarapungavan) in the Journal for Research in Science Teaching.

For 20 years she coordinated the College’s Undergraduate Research Training Program, supporting undergraduates’ research competencies and experiences in education.

Helen Patrick started in the College on Aug. 13, 2001, and has served here for 23 years. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan, and before coming to Purdue she taught as an assistant professor of Educational Psychology at Northern Illinois University.

Her research interests are in motivation and academic engagement, including associations among student motivation and engagement, classroom motivational environments, and teachers’ beliefs and practices. Her current research involves measuring the reliability and validity of observational measures of classrooms and instructional practice. She was PI of the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences-funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MOET) project (2014-2018) and from 2005-2009 was Co-PI of the U.S. Department of Education-funded Scientific Literacy Project (SLP), researching science instruction in kindergarten.

Ala Samarapungavan joined the College on Aug. 16, 1993, and has served here for 31 years. In addition to being a professor of Educational Psychology & Research Methodology, she served as a department head of Educational Studies (2008-2015) and again as an interim head of Educational Studies (2022-2024). Originally from India, she earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. Before coming to Purdue, she worked as a research associate at the Free University of Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. 

Samarapungavan’s research interests focus on cognition, learning and reasoning, exploring how social and material supports affect the development of thinking and knowing from childhood through adulthood. She also studies how classroom variables, such as teacher-student or peer interactions, task or activity structures and material supports, influence students’ engagement in learning, knowledge, reasoning, and epistemic cognition, and the connections between informal or out-of-school and formal school learning.  

She has received many awards, including being named a Purdue University Diversity Catalyst Fellow (2016-2022), receiving three Purdue University Seeds for Success Awards (2016, 2010, 2004), earning a Purdue University Focus Award (2008), being named a CIC-ALP Fellow (2010-2011), and receiving the Journal of Research in Science Teaching Award (JRST) Award (2010) for the most significant publication of the year.