Notes on Contributors
Jolynn A. Asato
(PhD) is a faculty member in Teacher Education at San José State University. Her work examines culturally sustaining and social justice approaches to literacy development in a diverse and rapidly changing society.
Alison Carr-Chellman
is Dean of the College of Education, Health & Human Sciences at the University of Idaho in Moscow, and a Professor of Curriculum & Instruction there. With six books and many refereed journal articles, Dr. Carr-Chellman’s focus has been on systemic change in schools, diffusion of innovations, instructional design, online learning, and boys and gaming. She conducts workshops, has a strong consulting practice across diverse contexts, and has been invited to present her work in Brazil, China, France, Norway, and New Zealand.
Sebastián Castaño
holds a B.A. in English-Spanish Education at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia. He is a researcher at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP) since 2014 and an instructor at Institución Universitaria de Envigado. His research interests include the use of English in the context of video games, with an interest in simulators, and fan fiction as a literary resource in the second language curriculum.
Jennifer S. Dail
is a Professor of English education in the Department of English at Kennesaw State University in the metro-Atlanta area of Georgia. She also directs the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), a National Writing Project site serving teachers Pre-K through college in all content areas. Dail served as coeditor of SIGNAL Journal, the International Literacy Association’s journal focusing on young adult literature, from 2008 to 2013. She is also an active member of several educational organizations including the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Writing Project (NWP). She serves on the board of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English (GCTE) as the First Vice President and Conference Director. Dail has published multiple articles on young adult literature and technology in The ALAN Review and has written book chapters focusing on this work as well. She also co-edited Toward a More Visual Literacy: Shifting the Paradigm with Digital Tools and Young Adult Literature (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) and Young Adult Literature and the Digital World: Textual Engagement through Visual Literacy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), both with Shelbie Witte and Steven Bickmore.
Laura D’Aveta
obtained her PhD in Children’s Literature at Pennsylvania State University and her MLIS at Kent State University. Her research involves readers’ interactions with fantasy settings and the sense of place they develop through those interactions. Laura has taught children’s literature courses, including methods and fantasy literature, at the undergraduate level in both in-residence and on-line contexts. She is currently the Humanities Librarian at Texas A&M University, where she hopes to continue her research in Children’s Literature.
Jason A. Engerman
is an Assistant Professor at East Stroudsburg University within the Digital Media Technology department. His research focus is at the intersection of underrepresented populations, and their sociocultural uses of interactive digital media (such as video games) within native learning ecologies in the age of experience.
Antero Garcia
is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University where he studies how technology and gaming shape both youth and adult learning, literacy practices, and civic identities. Prior to completing his PhD, Antero was an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. His most recent research studies explore learning and literacies in tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and how participatory culture shifts classroom relationships and instruction. Based on his research focused on equitable teaching and learning opportunities for urban youth through the use of participatory media and gameplay, Antero co-designed the Critical Design and Gaming School--a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. Antero’s research has appeared in numerous journals including American Educational Research Journal, Harvard Educational Review, and Reading Research Quarterly. His most recent books are Good Reception: Teens, Teachers, and Mobile Media in a Los Angeles High School (MIT Press, 2017), Doing Youth Participatory Action Research: Transforming Inquiry with Researchers, Educators, and Students (Routledge, 2016, with Nicole Mirra and Ernest Morrell), and Pose, Wobble, Flow: A Culturally Proactive Approach to Literacy Instruction (Teachers College Press, 2015, with Cindy O’Donnell-Allen). Antero received his PhD in the Urban Schooling division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
James Paul Gee
is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University and a member of the National Academy of Education. In his distinguished career spanning four decades, he has helped define fields such as New Literacy Studies, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and video games research. He is the author of some of the most influential books in gaming research such as What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003, Second Edition 2007), Situated Language and Learning (Routledge, 2004), Why Video Games Are Good for Your Soul (Common Ground 2005), Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays (Peter Lang, 2007), and Unified Discourse Analysis: Language, Reality, Virtual Worlds, and Video Games (Routledge, 2014).
Robert Hein
is a former high school English teacher that is currently writing his dissertation. He is interested in researching how competitive gamers improve their skills and build communities through livestreaming platforms like Twitch.tv. Specifically, he wants to better understand how these “Esport” competitors are able to quickly and efficiently make the transition from novice to expert.
Michael Hernandez
is finishing his B.A. in English-Spanish Education at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia. He was a researcher at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP) between 2014 and 2019, and also working as a freelance English teacher.
Ellen Middaugh
(PhD) is a faculty member in Child and Adolescent Development at San José State University. Her work examines youth civic development, civic education and civic media literacy in the digital age.
Raúl Alberto Mora
is an Associate Professor of English Education and Literacy Studies at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia. A former school teacher and Fulbright scholar, his current research agenda, an expansion from his PhD studies in Language and Literacy at the University of Illinois, explores the emergence of English literacies across different contexts in Medellín, the use of English in the context of videogames, and the implementation of contemporary literacy paradigms in the second language curriculum, topics he studies with his research team at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP).
Shannon R. Mortimore-Smith
is an Associate Professor of English at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, where she teaches adolescent literature and secondary certification courses. Her interests include multimodal, 21st-century, and New Media literacy practices, including the role of comics, graphic novels, Japanese manga, and video games in the English classroom.
Tyrone Steven Orrego
is an M.A. Candidate in Education (Virtual Environment Education Emphasis) at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia. He is a student-researcher at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP) since 2014. His research interests include the use of English in the context of video games, specifically Massive Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), and the role of critical media literacy in the in the reconstruction of social media environments to promote critical thinking.
Daniel Ramírez
holds a B.A. in English-Spanish Education at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia. He was a researcher at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP) between 2014 and 2019, currently also working as a freelance English teacher.
Nate Turcotte
is a doctoral candidate in the Learning, Design, and Technology program at the Pennsylvania State University, in State College, Pennsylvania. His research explores teaching and learning across formal and informal technology-enhanced learning settings.
Shelbie Witte
(PhD) is the Chuck and Kim Watson Endowed Chair in Education and Professor in Adolescent Literacy and English Education at Oklahoma State University, where she directs the OSU Writing Project and the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research. She serves as editor (with Sara Kajder) of Voices from the Middle, NCTE’s premiere middle-level journal. Witte has published extensively in the area of 21st Century Literacies, including Literacy Engagement through Peritextual Analysis (American Library Association and National Council of Teachers of English 2019) with Don Latham and Melissa Gross, Toward a More Visual Literacy: Shifting the Paradigm with Digital Tools and Young Adult Literature (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) and Young Adult Literature and the Digital World: Textual Engagement Through Visual Literacy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), both with Jennifer S. Dail and Steven Bickmore.
Jennifer Wyld
received her PhD in Science Education with a focus on Free Choice Learning in 2015. Her dissertation research focused on how a Maker Education experience, particularly a computer design after-school program, impacted youth interest development for middle schoolers in an under-resourced community. Jennifer has also completed Montessori training for elementary aged children and adolescents, and taught at both of those levels in public charter and private school settings.