President
Andrea English
University of Edinburgh
Andrea English is Professor in the field of Philosophy of Education at the University of Edinburgh in the School of Education. For more than twenty years, she has developed scholarship on teaching and learning that draws on and extends Dewey’s thinking, showing links to other philosophical traditions. Her work emphasizes that meaningful learning involves uncertainty and struggle. A central focus of her scholarship on teaching has been to examine the role of the teacher as a listener. She collaborates with international scholars to develop the field of listening in education. She also works with teachers across educational sectors to develop ideas and practices that build inclusive, democratic classroom communities. She co-authored an open resource for Advance HE’s “Anti-Racist Curriculum Project Guide” for Higher Education teachers. Her book, Discontinuity in Learning: Dewey, Herbart and Education as Transformation (2013, Cambridge UP) has been cited widely. Recent publications include a chapter on ‘Dewey, Existential Uncertainty and Non-Affirmative Democratic Education’ for an international volume on Non-Affirmative Education and Bildung (2023, Springer), and a co-authored empirical study on ‘Pedagogical Listening’ (2023). She is the editor of A History of Western Philosophy of Education in The Modern Era (2021, in a Bloomsbury Major Reference Works Series), and co-editor, with Leonard Waks, of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education: A Centennial Handbook (2017) and John Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct: A Centennial Handbook (in press), Cambridge UP. She also co-edited, with Ruth Heilbronn, the Policy Special Issue, “Decolonising the Curriculum: Philosophical Perspectives” in the Journal of Philosophy of Education. Her roles include Editor of IMPACT for the Journal of Philosophy of Education, Trustee, Executive Board Member and Teacher Education Coordinator for The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, and Associate Editor of Dewey Studies.
President-Elect
Jessica Heybach
Western Michigan University
Jessica Heybach is Professor of Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology at Western Michigan University and serves as Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Education and Human Development. A John Dewey Society member since 2012, she has served as JDS secretary-treasurer (2016–2020) and editor of Education and Culture (2020–2024).Her scholarship focuses on democratic education, political education, and Deweyan aesthetics, with particular attention to democracy, power, and pragmatism in school leadership. Her work bridges theory and practice, advocating for more democratic forms of leadership, policy, and practice. She has published in journals including Education and Culture, Education Policy Analysis Archives, Educational Studies, and Philosophical Studies in Education, and has authored numerous book chapters on justice, equity, democracy, gender, and technology. Her co-edited books include Dystopia and Education (2013, AESA Critics Choice Award), Making Sense of Race in Education (2021, SPE Book Award & AESA Critics Choice Award), Cambridge Handbook on Ethics and Education (2024), and Doctoral Studies as Educational Industrial Complex: Untangling the PhD/EdD Octopus (2026). She currently serves as Chair of the Dewey Studies SIG of AERA and is past-president of both the Ohio Valley and Southeast Philosophy of Education Societies.
Immediate Past President
Barbara Stengel
Vanderbilt University
Dr. Barbara Stengel is professor emerita of philosophy of education and teacher education at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of several books, most recently, Toward Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy with Liz Self, Harvard Education Press, 2020 and is the co-author, with Gert Biesta, of “Thinking Philosophically about Teaching” in the American Educational Research Association’s Handbook of Research on Teaching (2016). In recent years, Dr. Stengel has explored emotions like courage and fear in educational practice, taken up intersections between classical pragmatism and post-modern, critical, feminist, and new materialist theorizing, and posited critical pragmatist optimism as a stance for (re)constructive educational action in a precarious world. Currently at work on a book project that focuses on responsibility as the orienting concept for understanding education as moral practice, she is also collaborating on a podcast to represent the life of a school in Nashville, TN that was turned around through a thick school-university partnership. Dr. Stengel is the oft-delighted grandmother of Henry, Will, Maggie, Francis, and Lucy.
Executive Secretary & Treasurer
Peter M. Nelson
The University of British Columbia
Dr. Peter M Nelson is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at The University of British Columbia. Originally from Bangor, Maine, Peter completed his undergraduate studies at North Park University in Chicago, IL and earned his Master’s Degree from Northwestern University in 2013. He taught elementary and secondary social studies in Chicago before beginning graduate work at Michigan State University, earning his Ph.D. in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education in 2021. Broadly, Peter’s research explores affect, aesthetics, and ethics in the experiences of teachers and students, and his work has been published in Educational Theory, Theory & Research in Social Education, Democracy & Education, Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy, and the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. Peter enjoys hiking and camping, playing baseball, and live music.
Emerging Scholars Liaison
Michal Wiekzorek
University College Dublin
Social Media Coordinator
Erin C. Scussel
Transylvania University
Erin C. Scussel is an Assistant Professor of Education and Social Change at Transylvania University. She is currently serving as the Social Media Coordinator and as a member of the Board of Advisors for The Journal of School and Society. Erin is also involved with the Democracy Initiative, a newly formed extension of the John Dewey Society that focuses on approaching current events and issues related to democracy and education through a Deweyan lens. Other than writing for the JDS Democracy Initiative about Dewey and democracy, her research focuses on epistemologies of ignorance and the intersection of politics and philosophy of education. She is particularly interested in the ways policies and political discourse may be objects of and/or instruments for manufactured ignorance. In her teaching practice, she values a space of teaching and learning where the curriculum and the content is guided through open dialogue about critical and contemporary issues in schooling and education.
Society Archivist
Becky L. Noël Smith
Augusta University
Becky has been involved in the field of education since 2002. As a former public school teacher, a mother, a community organizer, and through her academic work, she advocates for democratic policies and practices in the public’s schools. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Research, Counseling & Curriculum at Augusta University, where she has the privilege of putting to use her teaching and learning experiences in her work with current and future teachers in Georgia and South Carolina. Her teaching is grounded in the tenets of social foundations of education, democratic pedagogy, and Deweyan inquiry. Becky’s writing projects focus on a Deweyan conception of soul, the aesthetic dimensions of educative experience, and the persistent struggle to make public schools more humane. She co-edited, with Randy Hewitt, Love in Education & the Art of Living (Information Age, 2020), and her recent work on Deweyan soul can be found in Educational Theory and Education & Culture. She served as JDS Secretary-Treasurer from 2020-2025 and was president of the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society in 2022.