Meet Our Team
Dr. Jerome E. Morris is the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Urban Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and serves as the Principal Investigator and Director of the Communally-Bonded Research Study. His interdisciplinary and empirically based scholarship examines the institutional structure and culture in schools, provides innovative conceptual frameworks to study marginalized communities, and cultivates meaningful partnerships with communities and schools. The nexus of race, social class, and the geography of educational opportunity represents a major theme in his scholarship, and he has been at the forefront of highlighting the centrality of the U.S. South in African-Americans’ experiences, examining public school desegregation, and rebuilding viable urban communities and schools. Morris was recently awarded the prestigious Lyle M. Spencer Research Award from the Spencer Foundation to investigate the development of his theory of Communally-bonded Schooling. A leader at the national and local levels, he is a co-founder of Education for Liberation, President of the American Educational Research Association, and partner with numerous community-based organizations. Morris is the author of Troubling the Waters: Fulfilling the Promise of Quality Public Schooling for Black Children (Teachers College Press) and Central City’s Blues: Race, Place, and Life in the Housing Projects of the Urban South (Publication forthcoming). He has published extensively in leading research and practitioner venues such as the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, Educational Policy, Urban Education, Kappan, and The Conversation.
Luimil Negrón-Pérez is a doctoral candidate in education and research assistant at the University of Missouri- St. Louis. As an education historian, she is interested in employing historical methodologies and ethnography to study the manufacture of racism and colonialism as forms of oppression in American schooling. Born to Puerto Rico’s diasporic community in Stuttgart, Germany, Ms. Negrón has spent most of her life in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Louisiana, and St. Louis, Missouri. When she is not focused on her projects or studying the consequences of urban education reform in communities for the Spencer project, Luimil can be found playing her violin.
Nicole Misra is a Ph.D. student in the College of Education and research assistant at the University of Missouri-St. Louis while also teaching high school English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in the St. Louis Public Schools. She seeks to provide a culturally affirming classroom for her students to achieve academically and grow personally while also collaborating with other teachers and scholars in resisting structural racism and inequity in education.
Dr. Zori Paul is an Assistant Professor in the CACREP-accredited Counseling Program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a licensed professional counselor. Her scholarship focuses on social justice, the mental health experiences of individuals with intersecting marginalized identities, and critical digital literacy. As a counselor educator, Dr. Paul is committed to preparing future counselors through evidence-based teaching, mentorship, and a strong emphasis on ethical, culturally responsive practice.
Dr. Joan Dodgson recently served as the Patricia and James R. Hemak Endowed Professor in Maternal Child Health Nursing Research at the School of Nursing, St. Louis University. She specializes in community-based research methods and qualitative methodologies, publishing widely on these topics. As a former PI, she has completed three National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH) community-based participatory research studies within minorities communities. She advises the research team throughout their research endeavors related to Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) and qualitative methods (data collection, management and analysis). She has extensive background in research methods, health disparities, and building knowledge about disparities among diverse minority populations in the U.S. and Asia.