Our Team

Ning Zou

Associate Director for Student Academic Services & Learning Design

Ning oversees HGSE's Writing Center and Communications Lab, where she provides programming, coaches students, and partners with related offices.  She works closely with all the Gutman research librarians to lead and collaborate on Research Services team's vision, strategic planning, budgeting, and web-based services. Ning holds an EdM from HGSE, an MBA from Dominican University, an MIS in Human-Computer Interaction and an MLS from Indiana University Bloomington. With more than 15 years of experience in higher education and academic libraries, Ning has successfully led library services and programs, taught various courses, directed study abroad programs, and conducted user research and instructional design work. Active in her professional field, Ning currently chairs the Information Literacy Standing Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and serves on the council of the American Library Association.

Max Lu

Teaching Fellow

Max Lu is a first-year PhD student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

His research interests lie at the intersection of technology, media, and learning science. He is particularly enthusiastic about applying Humanistic Intelligence (HI) principles to improve learning efficiency using technology with a special focus on news. Before joining Harvard, Max worked at Bloomberg Media and the Los Angeles Times on news innovations. He is also one of the co-founders of Dialogues on Asian Universities (DAU), a platform for global dialogue on Asian higher education, alongside three amazing higher education visionaries. Max obtained his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in engineering from the University of Toronto.

Email: haolu@g.harvard.edu

Emily Meland

Teaching Fellow

Emily Meland is a doctoral candidate in the Human Development, Learning, and Teaching  concentration, where her research aims to bridge silos between social emotional learning (SEL) and culturally sustaining, asset-based pedagogies. Her work focuses on understanding and building adult capacities to foster the positive social, emotional, and identity development of children and youth in ways that honor and sustain their diverse cultures and ways of being, while simultaneously building skills to disrupt systems of oppression and promote social justice.

Email: emily_meland@g.harvard.edu

Katherine Morelli

Writing Services Specialist

Katherine Morelli is a writing, language, and literacy specialist. She holds a PhD in Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy and a MA in Applied Linguistics. Morelli has been an educator for over 15 years in K-12 and higher education settings. She is an experienced qualitative and quantitative researcher specializing in health services and classroom-based research. As the Writing Services specialist, Morelli serves as a liaison to the HGSE faculty, staff, and students to foster communication and assist the Associated Director for Student Academic Services and Learning Design to lead and support peer-to-peer writing Teaching Fellows (TFs) and develop programming around writing and academic integrity. Morelli also works to increase outreach to the HGSE faculty, expand writing support and skills at HGSE, track and assess needs, and build abilities around cross-disciplinary communication through writing and related communication skill.

Email: katherine_morelli@gse.harvard.edu

Brandon N. Edwards

Lead Teaching Fellow

Brandon N. Edwards, PhD, successfully defended his dissertation in 2023.

Brandon's research uses qualitative, ethnographic methods to examine how evangelical secondary school students make decisions about where to attend college and why it matters for 21st Century democracy in the United States. He also serves as a qualitative research associate for North Carolina State University’s IDEALS Project and is a co-executive director of The S-1 Project, a non-profit dedicated toward enriching public conversations through moral philosophy and theology.

Brandon holds an EdM, ThM, and MTS degrees from Harvard and a BA from Wake Forest University.

Email: bedwards@fas.harvard.edu

Bobby Berretta

Teaching Fellow

Bobby is a second-year student in the EdLD program where he researches systems level change in public education organizations. He has been an educator since 2004, having served as a teacher, literacy director, and principal.

Bobby believes his love for writing started with his first and only spelling bee win in sixth grade. He now writes regularly for his doctoral program and for fun at Achievement Plateau. He speaks Spanish, a bit of Portuguese and holds a MS in Human Relations and Business from Amberton and a BA from Penn State.

Email: robertberretta@gse.harvard.edu

Marta Dormal

Teaching Fellow

Marta is a fourth-year PhD student in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching.

Using econometric and psychometric techniques, her research focuses on Early Childhood Development (ECD) issues, specifically on measuring and improving the quality of ECD programs in low- and middle- income countries (e.g., preschools, home visiting programs). Before joining Harvard, Marta was a researcher on ECD at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. She also conducted impact evaluations with J-PAL/IPA in Uganda and worked as an Economist for the Ministry of Finance of Djibouti through the UK Department for International Development (ODI Fellowship Scheme).

Email: martadormal@g.harvard.edu

Jeannette Garcia Coppersmith

Teaching Fellow

Jeannette is a PhD student in the Human Development, Learning, and Teaching concentration at HGSE and GSAS.

She is interested in understanding the instructional and psychosocial mechanisms that contribute to - and help to mitigate - disparities in secondary mathematics education.

Email: j.garcia.coppersmith@gse.harvard.edu

Maddie Gardner

Teaching Fellow

Maddie is an HGSE and FAS doctoral student in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching.

Maddie is intrested in exploring the conditions under which early childhood education settings consistently and equitably promote children's skill development, with a particular interest in the role of the earily childhood workforce in shaping children's learning envioronments.

Email: mgardner@g.harvard.edu

Caroline Tucker

Teaching Fellow

Caroline is a fourth-year doctoral student at HGSE focused on organizational behavior and the history of women in American higher education. She is the current co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review. She also serves as a Research Assistant for the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Initiative’s Subcommittee on Curriculum and as the Editorial Assistant for Into Practice, the pedagogy newsletter distributed by the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning.

Email: carolinetucker@g.harvard.edu