Janet Thomas: McNair Director

Dr. Janet Y. Thomas has been named the new Director of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement (McNair Scholars) Program. She assumed her new position on August 15. As Director, her duties include creating opportunities for undergraduate research for 20 McNair Scholars, assisting them in the graduate school preparation process, and tracking their progress through Ph.D. attainment. Dr. Thomas received her Ph.D. in educational policy studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. She has an impressive record of published research and teaching from Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Illinois. She also has an established reputation as a strong advocate for quality research training and scholarly experiences for undergraduates. She has written numerous scholarly articles, and is currently co-authoring an article for the Review of Research in Education, the journal of the American Educational Research Association, to be included in a special volume dealing with Title I. Her recently published book, Educating Drug-Exposed Children: The Aftermath of the Crack Baby Crisis, (Routledge/Falmer Press) was received with great acclaim from experts in the field, and will be inducted into the Sage Encyclopediaof Social and Cultural Foundations of Education as a major work in the field.