Dr. Alysia Roehrig

Dr. Alysia Roehrig, Professor of Educational Psychology, serves as the Department Chair of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. She joined the faculty at Florida State University in 2003, where she is a faculty member in the Learning and Cognition Program and director of the online College Teaching Certificate. She earned both her Ph.D. and M.A. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests focus on issues related to effective teaching, particularly exploring the successes of students labeled at risk for school failure. She primarily focuses on the literacy learning and motivation of students. She has published articles in Educational Researcher, Urban Education, Black Psychology, Elementary School Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, Science, and The Teacher Educator. She has co-authored several books, including the 7th edition of the widely adopted textbook Educational Psychology for McGraw Hill and the forthcoming 3rd edition of Child and Adolescent Development for Educators.

Dr. Roehrig is the Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of PURPOSE: Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education. PURPOSE is an Institute of Education Sciences funded Pathways to the Education Science Training Program, established to develop a pipeline of talented researchers who ask new questions and bring fresh approaches to address entrenched educational problems, expanding the scope and reach of science for the public good. She teaches research methods for the PURPOSE fellows and supports their summer service-learning research practicum at Freedom Schools. She also teaches the following graduate-level courses: Methods of Educational Research, Theories of Learning and Cognition in Instruction, and College Teaching.

Dr. Roehrig helped bring the first Freedom Schools to Tallahassee and serves as the Co-Director of Research for Florida A&M University Developmental Research School (FAMU DRS) Freedom Schools, a Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools Partner, where she is dedicated to conducting program evaluation that supports the continued success of the summer program. FAMU DRS Freedom Schools provides an opportunity for children from Tallahassee’s southside communities to participate in free summer camps focused on reading by authors of color about making a difference in the world. The Freedom Schools program grew out of the work of the historic 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi when free alternative schools were organized during the Civil Rights Movement.

Committed to open access to research, Dr. Roehrig chairs the American Psychological Association Division 15: Educational Psychology Practice Committee, which produces Education Practice Briefs. The goal of the briefs is to translate research into free guides that teachers and school leaders can use to support evidence-based practices.