Pace University Faculty Bios
Program Facilitators, Pace University SEO Faculty
Christine Clayton, School of Education
Program Director
Dr. Clayton is an associate professor in adolescent education where she teaches courses in teacher research, curriculum design, and content literacy. Her research interests center around teacher education, teacher learning, and curriculum design in high-stakes times. She previously worked as a high school history and English teacher as well as with school reform organizations in the S.F. Bay Area. More recently, she facilitated learning communities of new teachers in New York. In addition to directing the program this year, Christine will continue working with the group at Sleepy Hollow High School. Christine, along with the co-founder of this project – Dr. Jim Kilbane, has begun writing and presenting about the work from the first three years of this project at the American Educational Research Association, the Northeast Educational Research Organization, and, soon, at the National Association for Professional Development Schools.
Mary Rose McCarthy, School of Education
Program Developer
Mary Rose McCarthy received her PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo in the social foundations of education with a concentration in the social foundations of education. She is an associate professor in the School of Education at Pace University. Mary Rose has been a secondary school teacher and administrator. She has written and presented at conferences on Understanding by Design, teacher education, teaching high school students with disabilities, classroom management in inclusive settings, vestiges of segregation in the education of students with disabilities, and racial desegregation of schools. She is currently exploring the connections between data analysis, student learning, and inquiry-based learning. Mary Rose will work with the project this year on a number of tasks to help strengthen the connections between content and learning through inquiry in the program.
Lauren Birney, School of Education
School Facilitator
Dr. Lauren Birney an urban educator with twenty years of experience in the field. After twelve years as a clinical professor, she currently teaches in the School of Education at Pace University preparing both pre-service and in-service teachers in the areas of curriculum and instruction, classroom management, teaching methodologies and research techniques. Additionally, the focus of her work is to create programs that encourage students to engage in the fields of science, create meaningful science curriculum and provide interactive professional development for teachers. Lauren earned a B.A. in Biology/Chemistry from the University of San Diego, and an M.A. in Counseling & an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University ofSouthern California. She serves as a consultant to EduChange. For the grant this year, Lauren works with Millennium High School.
Beth Kava, School of Education
School Facilitator
Beth Kava is a Clinical Professor of Education at Pace where she teaches courses in general methods, social studies methods and in the history of education. She also works with student teachers in their field placements. She came to Pace after many years as a social studies educator and curriculum coordinator in NYC and White Plains and has been working with the Inquiry Group in Peekskill through this project.
Joan Kass, School of Education
School Facilitator
Joan Kass is an Adjunct Professor and Clinical Supervisor at Pace University. She teaches two courses: ED632 - Language, Meaning and the Development of Global Perspectives in Diverse Schools and ED645 -Secondary Methods: Making Modern Languages Meaningful. She supervises five language teachers in Westchester County, who are teaching French, Spanish, and Chinese. Prior to coming to Pace, she was the Coordinator of both the LOTE Program, since 1985, and the ESOL Program in the White Plains Public Schools, since 1991. She received my B.A. in French Language and Literature, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Mount Holyoke College, my MAT from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she worked with Ted Sizer, and her Administrative Certification from the Pace University Educational Leadership Program. She has also completed work towards an Ed.D at Columbia Teachers College in the area of Curriculum and Administration.
Program Director
Dr. Clayton is an associate professor in adolescent education where she teaches courses in teacher research, curriculum design, and content literacy. Her research interests center around teacher education, teacher learning, and curriculum design in high-stakes times. She previously worked as a high school history and English teacher as well as with school reform organizations in the S.F. Bay Area. More recently, she facilitated learning communities of new teachers in New York. In addition to directing the program this year, Christine will continue working with the group at Sleepy Hollow High School. Christine, along with the co-founder of this project – Dr. Jim Kilbane, has begun writing and presenting about the work from the first three years of this project at the American Educational Research Association, the Northeast Educational Research Organization, and, soon, at the National Association for Professional Development Schools.
Mary Rose McCarthy, School of Education
Program Developer
Mary Rose McCarthy received her PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo in the social foundations of education with a concentration in the social foundations of education. She is an associate professor in the School of Education at Pace University. Mary Rose has been a secondary school teacher and administrator. She has written and presented at conferences on Understanding by Design, teacher education, teaching high school students with disabilities, classroom management in inclusive settings, vestiges of segregation in the education of students with disabilities, and racial desegregation of schools. She is currently exploring the connections between data analysis, student learning, and inquiry-based learning. Mary Rose will work with the project this year on a number of tasks to help strengthen the connections between content and learning through inquiry in the program.
Lauren Birney, School of Education
School Facilitator
Dr. Lauren Birney an urban educator with twenty years of experience in the field. After twelve years as a clinical professor, she currently teaches in the School of Education at Pace University preparing both pre-service and in-service teachers in the areas of curriculum and instruction, classroom management, teaching methodologies and research techniques. Additionally, the focus of her work is to create programs that encourage students to engage in the fields of science, create meaningful science curriculum and provide interactive professional development for teachers. Lauren earned a B.A. in Biology/Chemistry from the University of San Diego, and an M.A. in Counseling & an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University ofSouthern California. She serves as a consultant to EduChange. For the grant this year, Lauren works with Millennium High School.
Beth Kava, School of Education
School Facilitator
Beth Kava is a Clinical Professor of Education at Pace where she teaches courses in general methods, social studies methods and in the history of education. She also works with student teachers in their field placements. She came to Pace after many years as a social studies educator and curriculum coordinator in NYC and White Plains and has been working with the Inquiry Group in Peekskill through this project.
Joan Kass, School of Education
School Facilitator
Joan Kass is an Adjunct Professor and Clinical Supervisor at Pace University. She teaches two courses: ED632 - Language, Meaning and the Development of Global Perspectives in Diverse Schools and ED645 -Secondary Methods: Making Modern Languages Meaningful. She supervises five language teachers in Westchester County, who are teaching French, Spanish, and Chinese. Prior to coming to Pace, she was the Coordinator of both the LOTE Program, since 1985, and the ESOL Program in the White Plains Public Schools, since 1991. She received my B.A. in French Language and Literature, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Mount Holyoke College, my MAT from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she worked with Ted Sizer, and her Administrative Certification from the Pace University Educational Leadership Program. She has also completed work towards an Ed.D at Columbia Teachers College in the area of Curriculum and Administration.
Other Pace Faculty Consultants
Dr. Brian Evans, School of Education
Dr. Evans is an assistant professor in mathematics education in the School of Education at Pace University in New York. His research interests are social justice in urban and international mathematics education, alternative certifications, and pre-service teacher preparation. Further, he is interested in teacher content knowledge, problem solving, attitudes, and beliefs. Dr. Evans primarily teaches pedagogical and content courses in mathematics at both adolescent and childhood levels.
Ms. Diane Giorgi, School of Education
Ms. Giorgi is an Adjunct Instructor in the graduate education department at Pace’s downtown NYC campus where she has taught courses in literacy in the content area, assessment and evaluation, and social studies methods. Diane has been employed by the New York City school system for 28 years, including 13 years as a teacher consultant for the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College, CUNY. In connection with this position, she works with individual teachers, teacher teams, and school administrators to support literacy instruction with a special focus on improving reading and writing. Diane has a wide range of experiences facilitating workshops and study groups for secondary school teachers across content areas. She also participates in initiatives of the Empire State Writing Project Network and the National Writing Project, most recently, a Gates-funded project to develop units of study and corresponding assessments in alignment with the Common Core State Standards.
Dr. Jack Horne, Dyson College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Biology & Health Services
Jack Horne is an Assistant Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Biology and Health Sciences on the Pleasantville campus of Pace University. Jack received his PhD in Cell Biology from Duke University, and did postdoctoral fellowships at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, England and at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. His research is focused on identifying the genes involved in the development of the vertebrate brain. His laboratory uses molecular genetic techniques to study brain development in embryos of the common aquarium fish, zebrafish.
Dr. Tom Lynch, School of Education
Dr. Lynch is the Assistant Professor of Education Technology at Pace University where he studies the use of educational software as a vehicle for education reform. He served nine years in the New York City Department of Education in both schools and central offices. After working at a Manhattan high school as an English teacher and instructional technology coordinator, Dr. Lynch joined former Chancellor Joel Klein’s Innovation Zone (iZone) team, which now includes over 200 schools. Eventually rising to the position of Director of Implementation for the iZone’s online learning program in K-12 schools called iLearnNYC, Dr. Lynch worked closely with the city’s IT division in the technical integration of various city and third-party platforms. He then moved to the Academics division to design the city’s online professional learning strategy for teachers implementing the Common Core Standards. He continues to advise offices in the NYCDOE and frequently gives talks and workshop on the Common Core Standards and learning technologies.
Andrew Revkin, Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies
Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding
Mr. Revkin is the Senior Fellow for environmental understanding at Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies and writes the award-winning Dot Earth blog for the Op-Ed section of The New York Times. He has spent nearly three decades covering subjects ranging from the assault on the Amazon rain forest to the changing conditions around the Arctic, from the troubled relationship of climate science and politics to the environmental impacts of rising human populations and resource appetites. From 1995 through 2009, he covered the environment for The Times as a staff reporter. His quarter century of coverage of global warming has earned most of the major awards for science journalism along with the John Chancellor Award for sustained journalistic excellence from Columbia University. Revkin has been a pioneer in multimedia communication, blogging and shooting still and video imagery in far-flung places. Dot Earth was created under a John Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Revkin has also carried his journalism to a new generation in The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World, the first book on Arctic climate change written for the whole family. His other books are The Burning Season, which was the basis for a much-lauded HBO film, and Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, which accompanied the first museum exhibition on climate change, at the American Museum of Natural History, in 1992. At Pace, he teaches courses on blogging, environmental-science communication and documentary video with a focus on sustainable development. He has written three book chapters on communication and the environment and speaks to varied audiences around the world about the power of the Web to foster progress on a finite planet.
Dr. Mohsen Shiri-Garakani, Dyson College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Chemistry & Physical Sciences
Dr. Shiri-Garakani has been an assistant professor at Pace University in Pleasantville since 2005. He received his Bachelor of Science in Physics at Tehran Polytechnic, and also received his Master of Science from the University of Akron in 1997 and his Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2004. At Pace University he teaches general physics, astronomy, electromagnetism, classical mechanics, history and philosophy of science, thermodynamics and statistical physics, and planet earth. Dr. Shiri-Garakani’s current research explores the general quantization process based on principles of algebraic simplicity and developing a finite quantum theory of the gauge fields. ere to edit.
Dr. Evans is an assistant professor in mathematics education in the School of Education at Pace University in New York. His research interests are social justice in urban and international mathematics education, alternative certifications, and pre-service teacher preparation. Further, he is interested in teacher content knowledge, problem solving, attitudes, and beliefs. Dr. Evans primarily teaches pedagogical and content courses in mathematics at both adolescent and childhood levels.
Ms. Diane Giorgi, School of Education
Ms. Giorgi is an Adjunct Instructor in the graduate education department at Pace’s downtown NYC campus where she has taught courses in literacy in the content area, assessment and evaluation, and social studies methods. Diane has been employed by the New York City school system for 28 years, including 13 years as a teacher consultant for the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College, CUNY. In connection with this position, she works with individual teachers, teacher teams, and school administrators to support literacy instruction with a special focus on improving reading and writing. Diane has a wide range of experiences facilitating workshops and study groups for secondary school teachers across content areas. She also participates in initiatives of the Empire State Writing Project Network and the National Writing Project, most recently, a Gates-funded project to develop units of study and corresponding assessments in alignment with the Common Core State Standards.
Dr. Jack Horne, Dyson College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Biology & Health Services
Jack Horne is an Assistant Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Biology and Health Sciences on the Pleasantville campus of Pace University. Jack received his PhD in Cell Biology from Duke University, and did postdoctoral fellowships at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, England and at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. His research is focused on identifying the genes involved in the development of the vertebrate brain. His laboratory uses molecular genetic techniques to study brain development in embryos of the common aquarium fish, zebrafish.
Dr. Tom Lynch, School of Education
Dr. Lynch is the Assistant Professor of Education Technology at Pace University where he studies the use of educational software as a vehicle for education reform. He served nine years in the New York City Department of Education in both schools and central offices. After working at a Manhattan high school as an English teacher and instructional technology coordinator, Dr. Lynch joined former Chancellor Joel Klein’s Innovation Zone (iZone) team, which now includes over 200 schools. Eventually rising to the position of Director of Implementation for the iZone’s online learning program in K-12 schools called iLearnNYC, Dr. Lynch worked closely with the city’s IT division in the technical integration of various city and third-party platforms. He then moved to the Academics division to design the city’s online professional learning strategy for teachers implementing the Common Core Standards. He continues to advise offices in the NYCDOE and frequently gives talks and workshop on the Common Core Standards and learning technologies.
Andrew Revkin, Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies
Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding
Mr. Revkin is the Senior Fellow for environmental understanding at Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies and writes the award-winning Dot Earth blog for the Op-Ed section of The New York Times. He has spent nearly three decades covering subjects ranging from the assault on the Amazon rain forest to the changing conditions around the Arctic, from the troubled relationship of climate science and politics to the environmental impacts of rising human populations and resource appetites. From 1995 through 2009, he covered the environment for The Times as a staff reporter. His quarter century of coverage of global warming has earned most of the major awards for science journalism along with the John Chancellor Award for sustained journalistic excellence from Columbia University. Revkin has been a pioneer in multimedia communication, blogging and shooting still and video imagery in far-flung places. Dot Earth was created under a John Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Revkin has also carried his journalism to a new generation in The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World, the first book on Arctic climate change written for the whole family. His other books are The Burning Season, which was the basis for a much-lauded HBO film, and Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, which accompanied the first museum exhibition on climate change, at the American Museum of Natural History, in 1992. At Pace, he teaches courses on blogging, environmental-science communication and documentary video with a focus on sustainable development. He has written three book chapters on communication and the environment and speaks to varied audiences around the world about the power of the Web to foster progress on a finite planet.
Dr. Mohsen Shiri-Garakani, Dyson College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Chemistry & Physical Sciences
Dr. Shiri-Garakani has been an assistant professor at Pace University in Pleasantville since 2005. He received his Bachelor of Science in Physics at Tehran Polytechnic, and also received his Master of Science from the University of Akron in 1997 and his Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2004. At Pace University he teaches general physics, astronomy, electromagnetism, classical mechanics, history and philosophy of science, thermodynamics and statistical physics, and planet earth. Dr. Shiri-Garakani’s current research explores the general quantization process based on principles of algebraic simplicity and developing a finite quantum theory of the gauge fields. ere to edit.