UT Austin

That’s the motto of The University of Texas at Austin, and that has certainly been Stephanie’s experience since she joined its faculty in 2007.

Stephanie is Catherine Mae Parker Centennial Professor at the College of Education in the Educational Psychology department — in which she serves as Associate Chair and Graduate Advisor — and has a courtesy appointment in Special Education.

She teaches The Culture of Disability in Education, a unique course that has more than 100 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled from colleges throughout the UT Austin campus, reflecting a deep interdisciplinary interest in its topic and an effort to expand diversity to include disability.

She is an inaugural affiliate of the Texas Center for Equity Promotion, which houses the National Disability Center for Student Success — the research center Stephanie founded in 2023.

Stephanie is also the Director of Research and Evaluation for Drama for Schools, a collaborative professional development program model in drama-based pedagogy that is an affiliation between the Departments of Theatre and Education at the University of Texas at Austin. It is a nationally heralded program that focuses on sustainable, whole school change by facilitating training for teachers, administrators, and community members interested in the application of drama-based instructional strategies (role play, improvisation, active learning techniques), providing partnering school districts with ongoing data on projected outcomes, and sharing program outcomes. Drama for Schools has partnered with schools and communities across the country for nearly 20 years and has recently expanded into international partnerships, including locations in Australia, Bosnia, and Taiwan.

Teaching the Change-Makers

Teaching is what originally drew Stephanie to academia, and it is what sustains her more than 25 years later. Her teaching philosophy rests on three pillars:

• Integration of theory, research, and practice
• Emphasis on diversity of perspectives
• Interactive, accessible formats that foster personal connections to the material

Her impact on students is lifelong. As one student explained:

“..not everyone is as passionate as you are. Not only do you pour your heart into your work, you pour it into the lives of others! You have made a tremendous impact on my life and my academic experience.”

Learn more about Stephanie’s innovative teaching practices and course designs in a special spotlight published by the Office of Instructional Innovation. .

Award-Winning Teaching and Research

Actors have the Oscars. In higher education, fellowships are the ways professors are acknowledged for excellence and impact. Stephanie’s fellowship awards include:

• Provost’s Teaching Fellow at the Faculty Innovation Center
• Faculty Research Award
• Elizabeth Glenadine Gibb Teaching Fellowship
• Joe R. & Teresa Long Endowed Faculty Fellow

Always in Service

Stephanie has a rock-solid belief that service — to students, colleagues, her profession, her fields of interest, and the causes she supports — is essential to expressing her gratitude for their important roles in her journey and to shaping the future for next generations. Sometimes it means she never has a dull moment (or an uninterrupted vacation), but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She has a particular commitment to service to the field of deaf education, which is experiencing a large turnover. Senior scholars are retiring at a time when the compression of the tenure stream faculty has left people like Stephanie with some huge shoes to fill — a challenge she is humbled and dedicated to meet.