Each department in the College of Education and Human Development has a designated Faculty Champion. We are here to connect you with resources on innovative and effective teaching methods, digital tools, and best practices to enhance student engagement and success. Our faculty members teach across different formats and can help you find activities and approaches for in-person, hybrid, or fully online courses. Whether you are looking for new ideas or want to discuss how to make your classroom expereince more engaging, we are here to support you.
College of Education and Human Development
Dr. Heather Trepal
Dr. Heather Trepal is the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Student Success in the College of Education and Human Development and a Professor in the Department of Counseling. She is a licensed professional counselor and board-approved supervisor in the state of Texas. Her research focuses on behavioral health workforce training, supervision, and development, culturally responsive counseling, professional advocacy, and trauma. She currently serves as the PI for the Program for the Integrated Training of Counselors in Behavioral Healthcare - Expanded Providers Project (PEP). The grant is designed to address health disparities by enhancing the delivery of culturally responsive mental health services to medically underserved communities uniting trainees from 4 behavioral health disciplines for specialized training and stipend support to work in integrated primary care, school, and community settings. She is a Fellow and Past President of the American Counseling Association (ACA). She also served as the President of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) and the Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC). Dr. Trepal is the recipient of numerous awards including the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Professional Leadership Award, The Texas Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Advocacy Award, the American Counseling Association Presidential Award, and the Dwight D. Arnold Outstanding Alumnus Award from Kent State University's Department of Counseling and Human Development Service Program.
Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies
Dr. Gilberto Lara
Dr. Gilberto P. Lara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bilingual and Bicultural Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has over 16 years of emergent bilingual education experience in dual-language, sheltered contents and teacher education settings. A former bilingual and ESL classroom teacher, he holds a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in Bilingual/Bicultural Education. He earned Master's and Bachelor's degrees from Boise State University in Education with concentrations in Bilingual Education and ESL Methods. His research interests are to explore the pedagogical practices of teachers in dual language/EL classrooms and the incorporation of community cultural wealth through the use of multicultural children's literature. He spent his childhood in both the United States and Mexico, he considers himself, bilingual-bicultural-biliterate. In 2017 he was named a STAR Fellow in the Literacy Research Association. His work has been recognized by the National Association of Bilingual Association as the 2016 Second Place Outstanding Dissertation Award. He has published in the Bilingual Research Journal, Social Studies and the Young Learner and recently the book: The Reading Turn-Around with Emergent Bilinguals: A Five-Part Framework for Powerful Teaching and Learning.
Department of Counseling
Dr. Donghun Lee
Hello, my name is Donghun Lee and I am an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling. I am serving as the COEHD faculty champion for my department and really enjoying my job assisting other faculty members. My research interests lie in the areas of professional identity and development, counselor effectiveness, and multicultural counseling and social justices. I am an active member of diverse counseling associations and is currently serving as an editorial board member of the Journal of Asia Pacific Counseling and International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling.
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Dr. Vanessa A. Sansone
My name is Vanessa A. Sansone, and I serve as a Faculty Champion for the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. I am also an Associate Professor of Higher Education who studies college affordability, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and power structures & governance on the trajectories, experiences, and opportunities of historically underserved students. As a faculty champion, I am interested in advocating for better technology resources and policy for faculty. To do this, I try to center the needs of faculty, who have of various appointments (i.e., tenure-track, tenured, and lecturers), in the development, implementation, and refinement of technology policies and practices. As such, my hope is to develop a working partnership between Academic Innovation and COEHD departments/faculty. I want to do this to make sharing and accessing technology and academic resources a common practice for COEHD that not only makes our teaching more effective but also leads to better learning outcomes and experiences for all our students.
Department of Educational Psychology
Dr. Ian Thacker
Hello there, my name is Ian Thacker. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. I study math and science teaching and learning with emphasis on learning technology, data literacy, and teacher bias. A big part of my research focuses on developing and studying technology for use in STEM classrooms. For example, I have published several studies documenting the design and evaluation of learning technologies that promote STEM teaching and learning across topics such as climate change, statistical literacy, and soil microbiology. As an instructor, I focus on preparing learners to be critical consumers of information, teaching them to use technology to make sense of real-world data, and provide opportunities for students to apply content they learn in class to better understand topics that they find personally relevant. As a Faculty Champion for the College Education and Human Development, I help instructors in the department of Educational Psychology find and use technologies that increase their students’ success.
Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
Dr. Samuel DeJulio
My work is focused on practicing toward the possible: Preparing teachers for the way schools can be, rather than simply preparing teachers for schools as they currently are. This approach requires an understanding of the history(ies) of literacy as a field and education more broadly. Looking back to the past can inform the present and help us reconsider where we are heading. In order to prepare teachers for this important work, teacher educators must provide experiences that are grounded in theory and that provide them with opportunities to engage with students, families, and communities in ways that disrupt deficit approaches that are prevalent in many schools and classrooms.
Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
Dr. Vittorio Marone
Hello, my name is Vittorio Marone, and I am a Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology. My research interests include humor and playful learning, technological discourse, and affinity spaces. As a Faculty Champion in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, my main goal is to support our faculty with learning technologies and lay the groundwork for the time when we will all be working under our AI overlords. I also like playing tennis.
Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
Dr. Jennifer Swoyer
Jennifer Gilardi Swoyer is a Professor of Instruction in the department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching. Dr. Swoyer has a B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Bilingual/Multicultural Studies, Ph.D. in Culture, Literacy, and Language, and 30 years of experience as a teacher educator and teacher of multilingual/multicultural students. Dr. Swoyer began her educational career as an instructor of adult English learners in a family literacy program, and was an ELL Instructional Coach working with middle school teachers and students before joining UTSA full time. In addition to supervising clinical teachers, she also teaches ESL and EED courses and is the lead for the UTSA-NISD Signature Teacher Residency. As a faculty champion for the ILT department, she collaborates with her colleagues to communicate student and faculty needs and support the implementation of technology with emphasis on universal design for learning.
Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Dr. Sonya Alemán
Sonya M. Alemán, Ph.D. (she/her/ella) is an Associate Professor in the Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and Mexican American Studies Program at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She has served as Director of UTSA’s Women’s Studies Institute since 2022. She received her BA from St. Mary’s University, an MA from the University of Texas, Austin, and a PhD from the University of Utah. A Chicana from south Texas, she studies mainstream media representations of communities of color, alternative media content produced by communities of color, and manifestations of race, racism, and whiteness in the media. In addition, she is invested in improving the educational experiences of students of color. She draws on critical race theory and Chicana feminism to inform both her scholarship and pedagogy. She developed and teaches Texas’ first class based on the life and career of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. She served as Editor of Chicana/Latina Studies from 2017-2022. She is published in Critical Studies in Media Communication; Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies; Review of Research in Education; Race Ethnicity & Education; and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
