Corinne McKamey, Ed.D

Postdoctoral Research Scholar through Spring 2010

Corinne McKamey joined the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) in April 2009 as a postdoctoral research scholar. After obtaining her B.S. from Cornell University and her M.A. from Trinity University, McKamey completed her Ed.D. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005. Her dissertation, “You gotta make Washington High like you” qualitatively examined the ways that immigrant students from nearly 20 different countries described and constructed cultures of caring in their Boston public high school. One section of this work documented the ways that students collaboratively engaged with their teachers and peers about issues that students’ cared about – for example, legitimacy, gender and racial equality, and academic success. These cultures of care provided spaces for students with a diverse range of ethnicities, social positions, and experiences to express and attend to their individual and collective needs as learners and participants in a larger school community.

Prior to graduate school, Corinne was a secondary science teacher and curriculum developer in several public, urban schools in San Antonio. TX. During her graduate school studies, McKamey was a researcher on Harvard Project ASSERT (Assessing Strengths and Supporting Affective Resistance in Teaching)—a study that examined teachers’ beliefs about how race, class, and gender informed their relationships with students. More recently she collaborated with Michelle Porche, WCW senior research scientist, on the Centers’ SISTEM (Success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) project. During her one-year postdoctoral post at WCW, McKamey continued working on this project where she developed her interests in supporting urban students and science education. She was particularly interested in continuing to understand how school contexts shape and are shaped by students’ identity development, including students’ academic, ethnic, and gender identities. Corinne also worked on the project evaluating a middle school sex education program for Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts.

Corrinne is an Assistant Professor of Education at Rhode Island College as of fall 2010.