The UW–Madison School of Education is bringing another talented and diverse cohort of new faculty members to campus this year!
To welcome these newest members of our community — and to reconnect with colleagues and celebrate the start of the upcoming 2024-25 academic year — the School is hosting its annual Welcome Back Bash event for faculty and staff on Friday, Aug. 30. Those attending will hear brief remarks from the School of Education’s new dean, Marcelle Haddix, with department chairs introducing their newest faculty members. Nine of these new faculty members will be joining us for the fall semester; one more will start in the spring.
This year, five of our departments are welcoming at least one new faculty member. Following are the incoming faculty members, in alphabetical order:
Roberto Abadie, assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology
Abadie, previously at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a medical anthropologist specializing in how social stratification — particularly class, race/ethnicity, and gender — contributes to health inequalities in marginalized populations. He has conducted NIH/NIDA and Greenwall Foundation-funded research on research ethics, public health ethics, people who inject drugs, and health disparities in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Abadie is the author of “The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects,” which won the Best Book of the Year Award from the Medical Sociology section of the British Sociological Association. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, BBC, Science, and more.
Julie Ober Allen, assistant professor of health promotion and health equity, Department of Kinesiology
Allen comes to us from the University of Oklahoma where she was an assistant professor of health promotion and director of the Stress and Health Disparities Lab. Her research investigates how chronic stressors rooted in social inequities, such as ageism and discrimination, contribute to chronic disease disparities among older U.S. adults. She emphasizes community-based, societal, and policy change to promote health and reduce Black-white health disparities, particularly in diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She completed her PhD in health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health and a postdoctoral fellowship with the Institute for Social Research, both at the University of Michigan.
Frank Fernandez, associate professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Fernandez joins the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis this fall as an associate professor. Previously, he was an associate professor of higher education administration and policy and affiliate faculty with the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He has also held faculty appointments at the University of Mississippi and University of Houston. He earned his PhD in higher education from Pennsylvania State University. Fernandez writes about educational equity and policy issues and is the author and co-author of many published articles. His research has been funded by groups such as Arnold Ventures, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation.
Allison Lombardi, professor, Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education
Lombardi will join the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education this fall as a professor. Previously, she was an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, where she taught courses in the Special Education Program and also directed two online graduate certificate programs. Lombardi studies the transition from adolescence to adulthood, with a particular focus on college and career readiness and higher education experiences among underrepresented groups, including students with disabilities. She has secured over $12 million in external funding for her research. Lombardi earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD in special education from the University of Oregon.
Naomi Mae W., assistant professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies
Mae is an incoming assistant professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies following her recent Anna Julia Cooper Fellowship at UW–Madison. Previously, she was an associate program officer and project manager at the Spencer Foundation. As an activist scholar and community organizer, Mae’s community-based research focuses on youth organizers of color in multiracial-multiethnic, intergenerational coalitions for educational justice. She holds a BA in African American studies from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in educational leadership, politics, and advocacy from New York University, and a PhD in educational foundations and policy from the University of Michigan.
Jacob Meyer, assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology
Meyer, a UW–Madison alum and expert on the neurobiological effects of exercise on depression, is returning to campus this fall as an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology. He earned his BS from St. Olaf College before earning both his MS and PhD in kinesiology from UW–Madison. Beginning in 2017, Meyer served on the faculty at Iowa State University. Meyer’s research focuses on the psychobiology and epidemiology of movement in mental health conditions, and he is passionate about improving health and well-being in diverse populations. He brings two ongoing NIH-funded clinical trials testing innovative movement-based interventions to treat depression to UW–Madison.
David O’Brien, assistant professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies
O’Brien received his PhD in philosophy from UW–Madison in 2019. He then served as an assistant professor at Tulane University and was the director of the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs from 2021 to 2022. He specializes in the philosophy of education, with a focus on understanding how the values of liberty, equality, and community bear on educational justice. His other areas of expertise include ethics and political philosophy, with a focus on understanding the moral significance of distributive inequality. O’Brien’s publications have appeared in many journals, including the Journal of Moral Philosophy, the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Theory and Research in Education, and the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
Jeffer Sasaki, assistant professor (starting spring 2025), Department of Kinesiology
Sasaki currently is an assistant professor at the Federal University of Triangulo Mineiro in Brazil, and the vice coordinator of UFTM’s Graduate Program in Physical Education. He will start his role as an assistant professor in UW–Madison’s Department of Kinesiology this spring. Sasaki served from 2020 to 2024 as one of the chief editors of the Brazilian Journal of Physical Activity and Health. His research focuses on validating physical activity assessment methods and examining their associations with health outcomes and promoting physical behavior changes in different populations. Sasaki earned his PhD in kinesiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and received postdoctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Krystal L. Williams, associate professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Williams joins the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis after serving at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education. She is also the director and principal investigator of the Education Policy and Equity Research Collective (Ed_PERC). Her research focuses on public policies that promote college success for marginalized students, particularly in STEM fields. This work is supported by many entities, including an NSF CAREER award to study outcomes among Black women in computing. Williams earned her PhD in higher education and public policy from the University of Michigan. She also attended Clark Atlanta University where she earned a BS and MS in mathematics and graduated valedictorian.
Yunyi (Icy) Zhang, assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology
Zhang comes to UW–Madison from UCLA, where she earned both a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a PhD in developmental psychology. She will join the Department of Educational Psychology this fall as an assistant professor. She is interested in understanding the processes underlying teaching and learning, with a focus on translating theories into instructional practices in real classrooms. While a graduate student, she was also part of CourseKata, where she used student data and mixed-method research to guide the continuous improvement of an innovative online textbook for teaching statistics and data science.