New Faculty Join UVA School of Education and Human Development

Five new faculty members have joined UVA EHD for the 2023-24 academic year. Together, they bring expertise in gender equity in education, the formation of racial and national identity, student engagement in out-of-school contexts, school leadership, mixed-methods program evaluation, and more. Learn more about each new faculty member below.

Sabrina J. Curtis

Sabrina J. Curtis is an assistant professor of education in the Department of Human Services. She comes to UVA from The George Washington University, where she was a visiting assistant professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and previously affiliated with the International Education program. Curtis's teaching, research, and community-facing work centers on youth civic engagement and sociopolitical development, the politics of Black girlhood, and gender equity in education.

Alexa Rodríguez

Alexa Rodríguez is an assistant professor in the Department of Leadership, Foundations and Policy and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Race and Public Education in the South (CRPES). She was previously a Mellon postdoctoral research associate at CRPES before transitioning into her current faculty role. Her research examines schools, migration, and the formation of racial and national identities in both Latin America and in the United States. She is currently working on a book manuscript, “Crafting Dominicanidad” (forthcoming with UNC Press), an intellectual history that examines how Dominicans used public schools to articulate and circulate competing notions of racial, class, and national identity during the early twentieth century.

Ashlee Lester Sjogren

Ashlee Sjogren is a research assistant professor in the Department of Leadership, Foundations and Policy and a faculty affiliate of Youth-Nex. For the past three years, she has worked as a post-doctoral research associate with Youth-Nex. As an educational psychologist, she often brings a social context lens to understanding questions of equity, access, and motivation in our education systems. Her research interests focus on equitable education and student engagement in out-of-school contexts. 

Jaime Stacy

Jaime Stacy is an associate professor of education in the Department of Leadership, Foundations and Policy. Before joining EHD, Stacy was the M.Ed. program director at Averett University, where she supervised online degree programs in administration and supervision, curriculum and instruction, math specialist, and special education. Prior to working at Averett, Stacy worked for over 20 years in K-12 education as a teacher, administrator, and professional learning specialist. Stacy’s interests lie in understanding the skills and dispositions K-12 school leaders need to support a rapidly changing teacher workforce. 

Kristina (Krysti) C. Webber

Krysti Webber is an associate professor of education in the Department of Leadership, Foundations and Policy. She comes to UVA from the University of South Carolina, where she was a faculty member since 2013. Webber's primary scholarly interests include social and environmental barriers to academic achievement and well-being, school-based mental and behavioral health services, and mixed-methods program evaluation. Her teaching focus is research, methods, and statistics.