Planning Your Graduate Studies Journey: Roadmap

Dr. William Black

Professor & Associate Dean of Graduate Studies

University of South Florida

Bill Black is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of South Florida. Before joining USF, Dr. Black was an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). Dr. Black previously worked in Florida, Costa Rica, and Texas as a community educator and immigration paralegal, bilingual elementary school teacher, and Elementary Administrator. Dr. Black received a B.A. in Anthropology and Comparative Area Studies from Duke University and an M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.  

Dr. Black's research interests focus on leadership preparation and partnerships, as well as educational policy implementation related to students identified with disabilities and bilingual/bicultural students. He has served as principal investigator (PI) or co-principal investigator (co-PI) on grants totaling over $4 million, and has worked extensively with local school districts to coordinate multiple district funding initiatives to recruit, select, and support over 150 educators pursuing Masters and Ed.S Masters degrees. 

Dr. Black has served as the co-editor of the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership and recently co-edited two volumes in the Research and Theory in Educational Leadership Book Series: Who controls the preparation of Education Administrators? (2019) and Who decides?: Dis/Ability, power, and Educational Leadership (2022). He has also served as the President of the University Council for Educational Administration, a consortium of 110 research universities.  

Dr. Maria Carlo

Associate Professor Child and Family Studies

University of South Florida

Dr. Maria S Carlo is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida in the Department of Child and Family Studies. She joined USF in 2017 as part of the USF Rightpath Research and Innovation Center.  She earned a PhD in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Dr. Carlo specializes in bilingualism and literacy development in school-aged children. Her research focuses on the cognitive processes underlying reading in a second language and on understanding the cross-language transfer of reading skills and how it affects the development of such skills.

She is also interested in generating educational interventions that support first- and second-language development, particularly around vocabulary. She has been involved in grants funded through the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Educational Sciences.  

Dr. Sophia Han

Professor, Early Childhood Education & Teacher Education

University of South Florida

Dr. Sophia Han is Professor of early childhood education and teacher education at the University of South Florida. She is highly engaged in collaborative, community and school-based, and advocacy-focused scholarship. Her research investigates (a) how teacher education programs can help prepare early childhood teachers to work with children and families from all backgrounds and develop critical perspectives; (b) how different beliefs and practices influence the education of young children in globalized contexts; and (c) how Asian American children and families experience schools and teachers, and how they can be improved.

Dr. Han is recognized for her distinctive scholarship and leadership in expanding early childhood theoretical frameworks and innovative research epistemologies. Dr. Han is a recipient of the Taylor & Francis Outstanding Early Childhood Teacher Educator Award from the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators and is a founding president of the Korean American Early Childhood Researchers Association. Her book Supporting Korean American Children in Early Childhood Education published by Teachers College Press won the Philip C. Chinn Multicultural Book Award from the National Association of Multicultural Education.