Instructional Leadership and
Academic Curriculum
English Education
Email: jkershen@ou.edu
Phone: (405) 325-1498
Office: Collings Hall 333
Please email Dr. Kershen for CV information.
Julianna Lopez Kershen is an Assistant Professor at the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education at the University of Oklahoma in the Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum department. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the topics of English language arts and literacy education, instructional improvement, and curriculum studies.
Dr. Kershen earned her Ed.D. in Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice from Harvard University. As editor of the Oklahoma English Journal, Julianna was awarded the journal affiliate editorial award as a National Council of Teachers of English Journal of Excellence. Previously, Julianna has worked as a researcher, university lecturer, high school English language arts teacher and district-level administrator in Oklahoma and Massachusetts. Julianna is a National Board Certified teacher in Adolescence/Young adult English language arts and received a Fulbright Teacher Scholar Fellowship for study in Tanzania and Kenya.
In 2023, she received an Oklahoma Teacher Connection grant to lead mentoring support for preservice and in-service teachers connected to the Rainbolt College of Education’s teacher education preparation programs. In 2024, Dr. Kershen was selected as one of six fellows for the American Education Research Association-American Institutes for Research Fellowship Program on the Study of Deeper Learning, with generous funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2024-2025). This research grant supports her inquiry into high school teacher and student conceptions of apprenticeship learning in classroom practice.
Her article, “Magic as Emancipatory in the Magical Realism Novels of Jewell Parker Rhodes” was awarded the 2024 Nilsen-Donaldson Award for excellence in scholarship in the field of YA literature from the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents and the National Council of Teachers of English.
Julianna’s research program focuses on teachers’ and students’ opportunities to learn together and from one another. Dr. Kershen is primarily a qualitative researcher focusing on perspectives and methods of critical textual analysis and investigations into expertise development in classroom teaching, students’ demonstrations of learning, and strengthening mentoring relationships between teachers.
