Our People
The Pathway to Practice NC team is made up of highly effective educators dedicated to ensuring our licensure candidates succeed and are supported.
Alison Winzeler, Ph.D.
Alternate Licensure Director
Winzeler is the alternative licensure director for NC State’s College of Education and director of Pathway to Practice NC. She has served as program director for NC TEACH, a face-to-face teacher preparation program. She is a former high school English teacher and most interested in innovative course design and delivery for new teacher preparation.
Diana Lys, Ed.D.
Assistant Dean for Educator Preparation and Accreditation
Lys leads educator preparation, program assessment and accreditation efforts at the UNC School of Education. She is a key partner in research linking teacher candidate performance data to graduate outcomes in the field, including student achievement scores and principal evaluations. Lys began her career as middle school teacher in rural North Carolina working with migrant youth and linguistically diverse students.
Rachel Stannard
Alternative Licensure Specialist
Stannard works as the Alternative Licensure Specialist at NC State with their Pathway to Practice NC and NC Teach programs and is a former Wake County teacher. She is working toward a master’s degree in higher education and has been part of research teams studying youth-led social justice movements and their perception of voting as an effective vehicle of change, as well as pre-service teachers’ dispositions on mathematics.
Caitlin M. Donovan
Facilitator
Donovan is a doctoral student in the Teacher Education and Learning Sciences program at NC State whose research interests center on critical digital literacies, online writing communities, e-learning curriculum design, and teacher preparation. Donovan is a National Board Certified Teacher and taught in Durham Public Schools for eight years where her curriculum spanned English/Language Arts, Creative Writing, Social Studies, and Montessori practices.
Amelia Garrett
Facilitator
Garrett is a doctoral student in the Teacher Education and Learning Sciences program at NC State. Her research interests are framed around educational equity. Garrett hopes that her research will assist in providing a culturally responsive and mastery-based education for all learners. She taught in the Wake County Public Charter School System for nine years, primarily with an elementary population.
Anna Hinden
Facilitator
Hinden is a doctoral student in the Culture, Curriculum, and Teacher Education concentration at UNC-Chapel Hill. She taught math for six years and is currently a K-5 math coach with Durham Public Schools. Her research focuses on the intersection of math education and teacher and students’ feelings about math. Her interests include how teacher characteristics and school culture impact teacher and student motivation for learning, feelings about learning, and relationships that foster a positive learning environment.
Jack Li
Facilitator
Li is a doctoral student in the Policy, Leadership, and School Improvement concentration at UNC-Chapel Hill. His research focuses teacher policies, particularly those having significant implications for early-career teachers and teachers serving at high-needs schools. He is interested in the individual teachers’ lived experiences, perspectives, and various determinants of their career paths. He previously taught at both elementary and secondary school levels.
Kelsie Yohe
Facilitator
Yohe is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development program at NC State. Her research interests include LGBTQIA+ representation in curriculum and how curricula as a reflection of self affects students’ mental health and motivation. She taught second grade in the Wake County Public School System for five years.
Julie Whetzel
Whetzel is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership, Policy and Human Development program at NC State. Her research interests include school choice for students with disabilities and special education teacher retention. She has spent almost 20 years in N.C. public schools, serving as a special education teacher and administrator and as a consultant for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Katie Peachey
Peachey is a doctoral student in the Literacy and English Language Arts program at NC State University. She received her Master of Education in Literacy from Wilkes University. Before starting her Ph.D. program, Peachey taught middle school and high school English at a public school in Pennsylvania. Her research interests include authentic writing, social and emotional learning, and embodied literacy.
Lauryn DuPree
DuPree is a doctoral student in the Culture, Curriculum, and Teacher Education concentration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior, she earned master’s degrees in elementary education and academically/intellectually gifted teaching. She taught for a decade in Wake County schools, teaching first, fourth, and fifth grades. Her research focuses on how teacher preparation programs provide authentic, social justice-centered coursework to promote racial equity. Her interests, more specifically, are using qualitative research methodologies to interrogate how students of education approach conversations and writings about race.
Caitlin O’Loughlin
O’Loughlin is a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Studies and Literacies concentration at UNC-Chapel Hill. She taught special education English and history in grades 9-12 in New York City and served as a NYC Learning Partners model teacher and as the ninth grade team leader. Her research interests center on discourses around queer people in schools. For her dissertation, she is working on an analysis of anti-queer logics in American education and theorizing how an adherence to radical hope could offer alternative ways forward.
Teresa Outlaw
Outlaw is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership program at UNC-Chapel Hill. Prior to joining Pathway to Practice NC, she served as a principal, senior administrator in special education services, principal intern, K-12 special educator, interventionist, and career and technical educator. Her research interests center on special education teacher preparation and retention, and the intersectionality of race and disability.
Stephanie Fiocca
Fiocca is a doctoral student in the department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences at NC State University. She has taught both formally in the elementary and middle school classroom and as an informal environmental educator. Her interests include bridging formal and informal education, supporting teachers in getting outdoors for learning, the importance of environmental education in the classroom, and getting kids in nature.
