at UTSA
Research in School Psychology
At UTSA, research in school psychology is supported by faculty members who are all experts in the field of School Psychology. We collaborate on research projects and work closely with our graduate students to provide hands-on research experience. Our research is funded by a variety of sources, including government grants and private foundations. Get to know each of our faculty.
Meet Our Faculty
Dr. Felicia Castro-Villarreal
Professor
Dr. Castro-Villarreal's research focuses on culturally responsive practices and school-based, teacher consultation. With respect to culturally responsive practices, Dr. Castro-Villarreal learns from stakeholders, educators, and caregivers in terms of what they need and then culturally fine tunes processes and practices to meet those needs through the use of cultural adaptation models and theoretical lenses of cultural humility, social justice, and ecological systems. This is turn impacts her consultation work with teachers where she researches process aspects, implementation fidelity, and intervention effectiveness with diverse populations. She is passionate about growing the impact and reach of evidence-based practices through her research and consultation work with teachers, students, schools, and families.
Dr. John Davis
Associate Professor
Currently, Dr. Davis’s research goals to fit within a broad vision of School Psychology as a discipline that encompasses academic, cognitive, social, emotional and cultural dimensions of educating children within school settings. To this end, his general research focus falls under the heading of investigating effective intervention practices for children in schools. This includes both direct implementation of intervention strategies and evaluation of intervention approaches through meta-analysis.
Dr. Norma Guerra
Professor
Dr. Guerra's scholarship involves diverse, at-risk, and underrepresented student groups. She has integrated theory and practice to explore strategic thinking and communication as demonstrated within the self-regulated and managed skills of mediation, problem solving, and engagement styles. This research has been published in counseling, student retention, and professional educator preparation journals. Her work is aligned into three associated groupings: (1) at-risk and underrepresented student groups, (2) strength-based problem-solving – LIBRE Model use to facilitate academic, personal, and professional success, and (3) Engagement Style strategic thinking and social-emotional learning. Dr. Guerra is committed to exploring new means and approaches toward inclusive, individual positive change and active community involvement.
Dr. Jeremy Sullivan
Professor
Dr. Sullivan’s areas of research include psychoeducational assessment, psychometrics, supervision, and training/professional issues in school psychology. He has recently been involved with several multi-year projects to respond to personnel shortages, which involve increasing the number of highly trained professionals (i.e., school psychologists, behavior analysts, teachers of the deaf and hard-of-hearing) in school and community settings. Dr. Sullivan received the President’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching Excellence at UTSA, and in 2012 he received the Outstanding Service to the Profession of School Psychology Award from the Texas Association of School Psychologists in recognition of his contributions to the field.
Dr. Mackenzie Hart
Assistant Professor
Dr. Hart's research focuses on empowering and supporting youth from or in low-resource environments. For example, her work seeks to build youths’ capacity and motivation for positive change, such as through designing interventions to increase critical consciousness and through expanding and strengthening services based in Motivational Interviewing. She is interested in growing the impact and reach of evidence-based, non-traditional service provision, such as through equipping and training youth mentors (i.e., paraprofessional providers) in skills often used by professional helpers.
Dr. Victor Villarreal
Professor
Currently, Dr. Villarreal's research includes evaluation of how models of school service delivery may better benefit culturally and linguistically diverse students, as well as appropriate ways of adapting typical practice (including education and psychological intervention). Dr. Villarreal’s current research also includes an evaluation of methods for identifying students with the greatest need for behavioral and emotional supports and intervention.