Research Team

B. Stephen Carpenter II, Principal Investigator | Stephen Carpenter, II, is a Professor of Art Education and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. He has authored journal articles and book chapters on art education, visual culture, digital and hypertext computer technology, and curriculum theory. He is co-author of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Art in High School and is co-editor of Curriculum for a Progressive, Provocative, Poetic, and Public Pedagogy. Carpenter was editor of Art Education, the journal of the National Art Education Association (2004-2006) and co-editor of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (2010-2013). His ceramics, mixed-media assemblages and installations, and performance artworks address social justice issues and critique historical, cultural, and political constructs. The proud father of a North African North American daughter, Carpenter is currently focusing his creative and scholarly efforts on the production and pedagogical implications of affordable point of use ceramic water filters for communities who lack adequate access to potable water.

Felix V. Rodriguez, Research Assistant | Felix Rodriguez is a Doctoral student of Art Education at The Pennsylvania State University. After teaching in inner-city settings in the Dominican Republic for around seven years Felix was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue his master degree at the University of Cincinnati. Felix’s interest in the role of art education to questions taken-for-granted assumptions has led him to get involved with socially-engaged art practices, public art making, critical pedagogy and postcolonial theories. Felix is currently interested in the possibilities of the art curriculum to address social, cultural and institutional ideologies that has traditionally marginalized [negated] African values and aesthetic within Dominican culture.

Erika Hitchcock | Erika Hitchcock, is an IB Visual Arts Teacher at Green Run Collegiate Charter School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, grades 9-12.  She is the lead teacher in developing the IB Visual Arts program at Green Run Collegiate and has a strong interest in developing active student engagement through artmaking and service action projects.  This interest has led to many collaborative community-based projects, locally and nationally, including work with the ‘One Million Bones Project’, and Students Rebuild.  Erika has been teaching visual arts for 14 years and was selected as City-wide Teacher of the Year for Virginia Beach in 2008. She holds a Gifted Education Endorsement from the University of Virginia, Advanced Placement Studio Art Endorsement and has been trained extensively in the MYP and DP International Baccalaureate Programmes.  Erika is presently working on establishing a school-wide service action project based on the Global Water Crisis employing the IB Visual Art students to lead the entire student body through education and action.

Cynthia Blackwell | Art Teacher, Pittsburgh Gifted Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Raquel Flora | Art Teacher, New Castle High School, New Castle, PA

Donna Hetrick | Art Teacher, Obama Academy, Pittsburgh, PA