Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation

Bio: Dr. Carla Amaro-Jiménez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). As an experienced bilingual education teacher and educator, she now works with pre- and in-service teachers as well as administrators who work with English learners and their families. Her research focuses on the intersections between teacher preparation, classroom instruction, and family involvement to identify additive practices to support English learners and Hispanic students in diverse 21st century classrooms. She also served as the Director of the Pathways to College Access and Career Readiness Program for almost a decade; Pathways included the implementation of UTA-manned GO Centers at 24 area high schools, early college experiences, and parent/community outreach.

Research Interests: Multi-tiered systems of support and equity, disproportionality, equity, behavioral disorders : Ambra L. Green, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Special Education within the College of Education at The University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Green is a national scholar with publications and research focused on students of color with and at-risk for disabilities, issues related to inequitable school practices experienced by students of color (i.e., disproportionality in special education and discipline practices), behavior disorders, positive behavioral interventions and supports, and teacher use of evidence-based practices. She is the Primary Investigator on a $1.1 million U.S. Department of Education Office for Special Education Programs (OSEP) personnel preparation grant which provides rigorous training for master’s special education and social work students to support K-12 students with disabilities and high intensity needs. Dr. Green also has experience working within the U.S. Department of Education Office for Special Education Programs (OSEP) and serves on the OSEP National Technical Assistance Center on PBIS Equity workgroup  Dr. Green was a special educator at the middle school level and a PBIS Coach. She holds current teacher certifications in EC-6 Generalist, 4-8 Generalist, and EC-12 Special Education in the state of Texas. 

Bio: Dr. Hoover has a PhD in STEM Curriculum and Instruction from Texas Tech University and 17 years of classroom teaching experience in Texas science classrooms. Research interests include environmental education, STEM education, and mentoring of new teachers.

Research Interests: Teacher education, postsecondary literacies, digital literacies, and underserved student populations.

Bio: Dr. Candace Joswick is an associate professor of mathematics education and interim chair in the Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation

Bio:: Dr. Kaya is an Assistant Professor with joint appointments in the College of Education Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation and College of Science Division of Data Science. He holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, an M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering, and an M.S. in Machine Learning Engineering. Dr. Kaya has secured over $4.7 million in research grants with colleagues and received prestigious teaching awards including the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Educator Award and ASEE Southeastern Section Outstanding New Teacher Award. His research interests span K-16 AI, computing, and engineering education, with emphasis on computational thinking and robotics. He actively volunteers with Code.org, Science Fair, and First Robotics programs, advocating for accessible STEM+CS/AI education that inspires students to engineer solutions for social causes.

Bio: Dr. Christopher Kribs is Distinguished Teaching Professor and Distinguished Research Professor at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he has held a joint appointment in Mathematics and Curriculum & Instruction since 1997. He developed and has directed UTA's graduate program in K-8 mathematics education since 2000, which has offered professional development to over 200 local K-8 teachers. His research interests in mathematical biology include modeling vector-borne diseases and zoonoses. His research interests in mathematics education include classroom discourse analysis and the learning and teaching of operations on rational numbers.

Bio:: Dr. Joel Leader is an assistant professor of practice in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Arlington. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and M.Ed. in Secondary Education from the University of North Texas, and his B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Kansas. He joined the UTA faculty in 2022 after serving 15 years in PK-12 education as a teacher, campus administrator, and district leader. His research explores how school and district leaders collaborate with stakeholders to design accountability systems that reflect community values and goals. Additional interests include educational policy, school law, equity-focused reform, educator preparation for social justice, and school-community relations. Dr. Leader is active in TASA, TCPEA, and serves as UTA’s Plenum Representative to the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA).

Bio:: Dr. Maricela León is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education with a STEM Specialization at the Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation of the College of Education at The University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on multilingual education, particularly Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs. She is interested in researching diverse languaging practices in STEM. She earned her Ph.D. in Education from Southern Methodist University in the spring of 2025. Before her career in academia, Dr. León served as an educator, instructional coach, and language acquisition specialist in various public-school districts in North Texas.

Bio: I am an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation for the Accelerated Online Principal Certification and M. Ed. programs. As an educator of 33 years, I served as a teacher for 10 years and a school principal for 16 years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, with the most recent assignment as principal at a high school in Dallas ISD. I also served as a district level administrator for 2 years in an east Texas school district. Prior to the principalship, I served as a project manager for Site-Based Decision Making at the Region 19 Educational Service Center in El Paso.

Bio: Wideline Seraphin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Studies within the Department of Teacher and Administrator Preparation in the College of Education. Her work explores the intersections of race, gender, immigrant status, and language diversity in the literate lives of Black transnational girls. As a teacher educator, Dr. Seraphin examines socially justice teaching pedagogies. She is the co-founder of Community Narratives in Focus, a narrative inquiry and digital archive centering historically excluded families in K-12 and higher education. Dr. Seraphin has been named an Emerging Scholar by the Haitian Studies Association, earned a 2020 Curriculum Inquiry Writing Fellowship, and is a proud member of the BeyHive.

Teaching Interests: Through this service-learning experience, prospective teachers read aloud to English language learners from working poor families, and the children received a tote bag of the books read aloud at the family literacy event each semester.

Bio:: Dr. Weisberg's research sits at the intersection of teacher education and educational technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Florida in 2024 after spending more than a decade teaching STEM and arts-based courses at the secondary and college levels. In projects funded by NSF, IES, and Google, her work has supported inclusive computing and STEM instruction in K–12 schools. She also designs teacher professional learning experiences grounded in instructional approaches like Universal Design for Learning, and is expanding her research to co-design arts-integrated and AI-focused STEM curricula with K–12 educators and community partners.