Program Faculty
The School Psychology Program faculty is composed of four core full-time members responsible for administering the Program (Drs. Berger, O’Neal, Teglasi, and Wang) but other faculty members from the CHSE Department and other Department in the College and University teach courses and serve on thesis and dissertation committees for our students. The core faculty members typically supervise our students’ research and practicum experiences as well as teach. Dr. Teglasi serves as training director. Brief biographies of core faculty are provided below.
Jill B. Jacobson, Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor, is a graduate of the University of Maryland school psychology doctoral program. She earned her B.A. in psychology with highest distinction from the University of Virginia. Dr. Berger has worked as a full-time school psychologist in Fairfax County, Virginia and as a school psychology doctoral intern in Howard County, Maryland. She previously worked as a research analyst conducting educational and social sciences research at ICF International. Dr. Berger has been involved in a number of applied research studies that have analyzed the effects of marital conflict on children, evaluated school programs and team models, examined teacher instructional practices, and most recently, experimented with using social media in adolescent suicide prevention.
Colleen O’Neal, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, is a graduate of Long Island University’s APA-accredited clinical psychology Ph.D. program. She earned a B.A. in psychology at Cornell University and a masters in child development at Auburn University. She completed an NIH postdoctorate in mental health statistics at NYU and continued at the NYU School of Medicine Child Study Center as an assistant professor conducting school-based intervention research. She recently received a Fulbright Alumni Award, as a team co-leader, to study the prevention of Burmese refugee minority child mental health and promotion of academic competence in Malaysia. She currently serves on the Fulbright refugee higher education and peer review committees for Southeast Asia. She is also the co-coordinator of the emotions preconference at the Society for Research in Child Development. The overarching goal of her research is mental health service equity for minority children. In addition to international mental health prevention among refugee children, her research focuses on the longitudinal study of emotional development, stress, and the prevention of anxiety and depression among low-income, minority children in the U.S.
Hedy Teglasi, Ph.D., Professor and Training Director, is a graduate of Hofstra University's APA-accredited psychology program, and is Board Certified in School Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and a Fellow of the APA (Div. 16), Society for Personality Assessment, and the American Academy of School Psychology. She has held elected office in the American Academy of School Psychology and served as Chair of the American Board of Professional School Psychology. She completed her internship in a public school system, a university-based psychological evaluation and research center, and a family clinic serving the judicial system. She has served as associate editor of the School Psychology Quarterly and as member of several editorial boards, including Psychological Assessment. Dr. Teglasi's research has focused on the impact of temperament and social-information processing schemas on social and emotional adjustment as these relate to assessment and interventions. Her publications include chapters and articles on assessment (including parent conferences and report-writing), temperament, social information processing, and programs for interventions (including bullying, and enhancing social-emotional competence). She is the author of two recent reference texts on the use of storytelling techniques in personality assessment.
Cixin Wang, Ph.D., assistant professor, received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2011. She then completed a two-year postdoctoral training at Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins University in 2013. Her research interests focus on bullying prevention and mental health promotion among children and adolescents. Her research seeks to: (1) better understand different factors contributing to bullying/ victimization and mental health difficulties, including individual, family, school, and cultural factors; (2) develop effective prevention and intervention techniques to decrease bullying at school; and (3) develop school-wide prevention models to promote mental health among students, especially among culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students.
Emeritus Faculty
Emeritus faculty includes those who have been long-standing core members of the school psychology faculty, but who are now retired. Emeritus faculty may continue to advise students who began their work with them, continue an active program of research and scholarship, and serve on thesis and dissertation committees. These valued faculty members do not accept new advisees.
Gary Gottfredson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, earned his PhD in psychology from the Johns Hopkins University. He was principal research scientist and directed the School Improvement Program and the Program in Delinquency and School Environments at the Johns Hopkins Center for Social Organization of Schools. He is a fellow of APA Divisions 5 and 17 (Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics; Counseling Psychology), the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Experimental Criminology; has served on the APA Task Force on Victims of Crime and two National Research Council committees; chaired the APA Committee on Employment and Human Resources, been president of the APA Division of Population and Environmental Psychology; and has been a member of MSDE's Achievement Initiative for Maryland's Minority Students Steering Committee. His research and publications have focused on educational program development and evaluation, school-based prevention of problem behavior, the assessment of school environments, and psychological assessment.
Sylvia Rosenfield, Professor Emerita, graduated from the school psychology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, she was a school psychologist in the Madison (WI) public schools and a faculty member at Fordham and Temple Universities. She has served as treasurer and president of the APA Division of School Psychology, as well as a member of the APA Board of Educational Affairs. She is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Her awards include the NASP Legends Award, the NASP Lifetime Achievement Award, and the APA Distinguished contributions to Education and Training Award; she is a Fellow of APA and AERA. Her research and multiple publications have focused on training and practice in indirect services, particularly consultee-centered and instructional consultation, and school psychology. Recent publications include co-authorship of the Blueprint for Training and Practice III, published by NASP, and a co-edited book on implementation of evidence based practices in schools.
William Strein, D. Ed., Associate Professor Emeritus, graduated from the APA-accredited school psychology program at the Pennsylvania State University. He is a Fellow of APA (Division 16 – School Psychology). Prior to joining the program in 1981, he worked for several years as a school psychologist in public schools in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and served as a visiting faculty member in the school psychology program at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is actively involved in professional organizations both nationally and in Maryland. His research focuses on children's social-emotional learning, particularly children’s self-perceptions of competence. His publications also have addressed work on professional issues in school psychology, including prevention and the application of population-based models to school psychology.
In addition to working with Program faculty, students take courses and may do research with other nationally recognized graduate faculty members in the CHSE Department, and in other departments such as Psychology or Human Development and Quantitative Methods.