New Faculty, New Energy, New Research

The Gevirtz School is fortunate to have three new senate faculty members join its ranks starting with this 2018-19 school year: Dr. Alison Cerezo joins the Department of Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology as an assistant professor while Dr. Rachel Lambert and Dr. Karin Lohwasser join the Department of Education, Lambert as an assistant professor and Lohwasser as a lecturer with potential security of employment. Here’s a quick introduction to our new colleagues.

Alison Cerezo comes to us from a position as an associate professor at San Francisco State University in the Department of Counseling, College of Health and Social Sciences. She was also Affiliate Faculty with the Health Equity Institute at SF State.

Cerezo is excited about joining CCSP, saying, she values “the strong, positive reputation of the program; my colleagues and the potential to learn from them; the impressive students I met during my interview; the amazing graduates I've met over the years—folks are doing wonderful work.”

Cerezo’s current projects involve examining how minority stress impacts psychological distress and alcohol-related outcomes in sexual minority women. She has two just finished projects and is gearing up to carry out a new study that also explores coping and resilience.

Her goals for the next few years at UCSB, she says, are to “engage in exciting, innovative research to eliminate social and health disparities in LGBT and communities of color. To work with students and colleagues to make a real impact in improving access to critical supports that lead to healthy outcomes for underserved communities.”

Rachel Lambert comes to us from a position as an assistant professor in the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University.

Lambert was particularly drawn to the Department of Education since “the position called for someone in the area of both STEM and special education, indicating a commitment to interdisciplinary work. I see that focus throughout UC Santa Barbara, and am excited to work across disciplines.”

She is currently working on a project to interview research mathematicians who identify as having dyslexia to better understand how dyslexia might be accompanied by both cognitive strengths and challenges, and how these might relate to mathematics.

Her goals for the next few years at UCSB, she says, are “to build relationships with faculty and students, to engage in multiple research projects, and to contribute to the expanding special education offerings in the Teacher Education Program.”

Karin Lohwasser comes to us from a position as a Researcher in Science Education at the University of Washington, College of Education.

“I am interested in teacher education, starting when students don’t even know yet that they may want to become teachers to practicing teachers to teachers in semi-retirement,” she says as a way to begin what brought her to UCSB. “When the opportunity opened up to teach undergraduates in the CalTeach program and secondary science candidates in TEP, combined with a well functioning school district in a beautiful area – I couldn’t resist applying. In addition to teaching, I was drawn to the strong collaboration between science educators at GGSE and other science and engineering departments. When I met my potential future colleagues, I knew that I had found my place.”

Lohwasser is still PI for a NSF-funded project called NASCENT (New Approaches to Support the Clinical Experience of Novice Teachers)—some of the results from that work can be found at the website Mentoring Teachers. The goal of the project, according to the site, is “to create, disseminate, and study powerful tools and ways of interacting that can help mentors and novices grow in their respective repertoires of practice.”

Lohwasser’s goals for the next few years at UCSB are to “support our teacher candidates and practicing teachers in developing, adapting and further developing ambitious science teaching practices—with a special focus on multicultural and multilingual students. And I hope to develop a network of mentor teachers in the region where interested colleagues can support and learn from each other, get input from research and experts, and create knowledge and practices that benefit our prospective teachers and other mentors.”