Celebrating Our Faculty

Richard Castallo

Dr. Castallo joined the ELPS Department in 2002.  Prior to joining CSUN, Dr. Castallo was Professor and Coordinator of the Education Administration Program at SUNY, Cortland.  During his 18 years at CSUN, Dr. Castallo provided exemplary leadership service to the department, serving as Chair (2002-07).   Dr. Castallo also served as Program Coordinator for the Chinese Institute, and Co-Director of Project CHANGE.  Dr. Castallo was also a member of the Doctoral Core faculty, serving both as a dissertation chair and dissertation committee member.  

William de la Torre

Dr. Delatorre joined the ELPS Department in 1990.  Prior to his appointment as a tenure-track faculty, Dr. Delatorre served as adjunct faculty in the Department of Chicana/o Studies Studies at CSUN.  During his 30-year tenure, Dr. Delatorre provided admirable leadership service to the department, serving as Interim Chair (2010-12) and Chair (2012-15).   Dr. Delatorre also served as Faculty Council President for the College of Education, and Graduate Coordinator for the Higher Education Leadership Masters Program.  Dr. Delatorre was also a member of the Doctoral Core faculty, serving both as a dissertation chair and dissertation committee member.  

Ricardo Sosapavon

Ricardo Sosapavon joined the ELPS Department in 2006 as a Full-time Lecturer. Prior to joining CSUN, Ricardo served in multiple leadership positions in LAUSD, including Vice Principal, Principal, and District Coordinator of Special Education.  In his 14 years at CSUN, Ricardo played an instrumental role in growing the Masters in Educational Administration/Preliminary Administrative Services Credential.  He also served as the program’s Graduate Coordinator since 2015.

Beverly Cabello

Beverly Cabello started her academic career as a total UCLA lady! Go Bruins! She received all of her degrees at UCLA concluding with her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in 1992.
After working as a LAUSD elementary bilingual teacher, researcher, educational program evaluator she came to the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling in 1990 with a concentration in Development, Learning and Instruction.
She was our Faculty President from 2002 to 2004. From 2006 – 2008 Bev was the University Co-leader of Research for “Teachers for a New Era” Carnegie Grant. She was the Chair of EPC from 2006 to 2008. She was Associate Dean to Dean Mike Spagna from 2008 to 2014. Bev capped off her illustrious career as the Director for the CSUN - Center for Assessment, Research and Evaluation (CARE) from 2014 to 2020. Thank you Bev, for your support of the COE and CSUN!

Stan Charnofsky

"My early life was as an athlete, a baseball player at USC, then professionally in the New York Yankees organization. After a few years as a player, I became a manager, won a championship in Edmonton, Canada, then became the coach at Valley State, now CSUN. I coached at CSUN for five years and won one championship way back in 1965. I have been inducted into the CSUN Athletic Hall of Fame. I moved into the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department in 1970, after finishing my doctorate at USC in Counseling Psychology.

Recently I was awarded the USC Spirit of Troy award as a high achieving athlete at USC. I also received the honor of being inducted into the Jewish Athletic Hall of Fame of Southern California. At CSUN, I received the Distinguished Teaching Award.

I was the founding director of the CSUN Educational Opportunities Program (EOP). For five years I was campus President of the national honor society Phi Kappa Phi. I have been Chair of the EPC Department, once for 4 years, once for 5 years.

For the past twenty years I have been writing every day, have published two textbooks and two books for the trade, one called The Deceived Society and one When Women Leave Men: How Men Feel, How Men Heal. I have also published seven novels, my last one called Charlotte, about a seventy-year-old living in a retirement village who solves a murder mystery. The same publisher, Devils Party Press in Delaware, will publish my second Charlotte novel Accident, the end of this year.

I still live in Northridge with my son Jordan who has a doctorate in music from USC. Thank goodness for him as he orders in all our food."

Irene Cota

Dr. Irene Calzada Cota’s parents dropped out of school in the 7th and 9th grades to support their families. However, they always stressed to her the importance of a high school diploma so she wouldn’t have to work in the fields or packing houses.
After high school, Irene earned her A.A. degree in Secretarial Skills. She then worked as a clerk-typist and dreamed of graduating from a university.
She learned about the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and in spring 1970 she attended Valley State, now CSUN. At CSUN she earned her B.A. in English and a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. Irene will forever be thankful to EOP for enabling her to graduate from a university.
Irene later earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Curriculum and Teacher Education with an emphasis on bilingual/bicultural education, as well as a M.A. in Foreign Language and Second Language Learning. In addition, she earned a Certificate in The Teaching of English as A Second Language from UCLA. Irene was a bilingual/bicultural elementary school teacher for fourteen years and a Title VII Coordinator. At CSUN she supervised student teachers and taught language arts, social studies, and English language development courses to future elementary teacher candidates. Irene also taught graduate courses in bilingual and multicultural education. From 2000 to 2013 she was the Grant Director for the CSUN Multiple Subject Intern Program. Her research interests have focused on finding ways to better meet the learning and language needs of English learners as well as increasing parental involvement.

 Lynn Gordon

Lynn Melby Gordon grew up in Southern California and attended public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from Occidental College, and her administrative credential and Ph.D. in Education (with a specialization in Learning and Instruction) from UCLA. In her early career, Lynn taught elementary school for fourteen years, frequently serving as both a mentor teacher and supervising teacher for CSUN and UCLA student teachers. She reports that her favorite grades to teach were kindergarten and first grade. She eventually became an instructor with UCLA’s Teacher Education Laboratory (now Center X) for five years.

Lynn earned her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA and started out teaching at CSUN 24 years ago, in 1996, as a part-time instructor for both the Department of Educational Psychology and the Department of Elementary Education. She was a full-time professor with the CSUN Department of Elementary Education since 2002. At CSUN, Dr. Gordon specialized in teaching reading, literacy, educational psychology, and ELD methods classes for students in the multiple-subject teaching credential program. She was known for her enthusiastic teaching style, vivid instructional materials, and practical demonstration lessons. She also taught popular RICA test preparation workshops for elementary and special education credential students. In 2011, the chair of the Department of Elementary Education nominated Dr. Gordon for CSUN’s Distinguished Teaching Award. She was the recipient of a variety of other awards, grants, and honors including a UCLA alumni award for excellence in scholarship and contribution to the field of education, an Occidental College ALOED (Alumni of Occidental in Education) certificate for outstanding service and leadership in the field of education, and an LAUSD Teamwork Award for dedication to student achievement through volunteerism.

Dr. Gordon, a phonics expert and dynamic speaker, was the founder of the International Literacy Association’s Phonics Special Interest Group and was well known for promoting methods for engaging and multisensory phonics instruction. Dr. Gordon was frequently invited to speak and give demonstrations at schools as well as at local and international reading conferences. For many years, Lynn Gordon was also a volunteer trainer for KOREH LA, the Jewish Federation’s non-profit community organization that trains literacy volunteers to work with struggling readers in LAUSD public schools.

In 2009, Scholastic published her teacher resource book, The Big Collection of Phonics Flipbooks, a collection of reproducible hands-on phonics flipbook patterns, dictation sheets, and 21 phonics assessments for beginning and struggling readers. She was also the author of many scholarly articles on the topics of teacher efficacy, attribution theory, classroom management, teacher education, and dyslexia, as well as a second book, How to Write a Lesson Plan. Lynn Gordon’s 2015 research report on twins and school separation was widely publicized, translated into Spanish, and prompts ongoing queries and requests from parents and researchers around the world.

Lynn Gordon and her husband David live in Woodland Hills, within walking distance of the CHIME Charter school where their twins, Hunter and Tyler, now aged 21, were lucky enough to once attend. The Gordons have many fond memories of CHIME and their relationships with CHIME founding family members, professors, administrators, teachers, and friends. Undoubtedly, the CHIME Institute’s nationally renowned model of inclusive education is a shining example of CSUN’s best outreach work. (Tyler and Hunter recently graduated UCLA and UC Berkeley respectively, Lynn proudly reports.) Lynn and her family are grateful for those wonderful years at CHIME.

Lynn retired from CSUN in August 2020. The university awarded her the honor of Professor Emeritus status for distinguished service and contribution to the profession of education, the state of California, and the University.

Lynn says,

"It has been a special privilege to serve on the faculty for over 24 years. I am truly grateful to CSUN for giving me a rewarding teaching career in higher education and so many warm memories working with our bright, determined, and optimistic elementary teaching credential students. It has meant a great deal to me, over the years, to have a meaningful and gratifying position that allowed me to support teacher education and build children’s literacy and educational access in Los Angeles and across the state.

I know that everyone in CSUN’s College of Education will carry on beautifully in The Important Work—in the rich array of everyone’s various noble efforts, across the six departments, to make a difference and make the world a little better, one kid and one person at a time. Thank you for the honor of being part of the team."

Kathleen Rowlands

In 2004, Kathy Rowlands joined the Department of Secondary Education, where she has taught credential and master’s-level courses in secondary English education and in literacy across the content areas. She has also taught writing courses for the Educational Leadership doctoral program. Since 2006, she has served on the state-level Advisory Committee for the CSU’s Expository Reading and Writing Course and has coached dozens of 7th to 12th-grade English teachers in the use of this curriculum. In 2008, she established a chapter of the prestigious National Writing Project at CSUN, and for the next decade directed the Cal State Northridge Writing Project, providing workshops and events for K-12 teachers to help them effectively teach writing across subject areas. Kathy has published over two dozen articles on topics related to English teaching and literacy education and delivered multiple presentations at the local, regional, and national level. She also served on the 2015 English Language Arts/ English Language Development K-12 Curriculum Adoption Committee of the California Department of Education. Hundreds of teachers in the LA basin and beyond are more effective teachers of English and of literacy because of Kathy Rowlands’ mentorship.

Doğukan Ulupinar

Dr. Doğukan Ulupinar joined CSUN in 2020 and is a core faculty member in the Counseling program. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the Pennsylvania State University. Before joining CSUN, Dr. Ulupinar worked as a professional counselor in a variety of different areas including college mental health, community mental health and vocational rehabilitation. He is a licensed professional counselor and nationally certified counselor.

His research is situated in the counseling outcome studies, with a special focus on collegiate mental health and counselor performance in integrated primary and behavioral healthcare settings. He serves in the editorial board in the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling. He has taught several core and specialty area courses in counseling including Counseling Theories, Counseling Practicum, Research in Counseling, Diagnostic Issues in Counseling, Field Experience, and Mental Health Counseling in School and Communities.

Christine Firkins

Christine Firkins has been teaching for the Deaf Studies department since 2008.  She is currently a doctoral candidate completing her final year in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Ed.D. program at California State University, Northridge (CSUN).  Her dissertation is centered on how department chairs and program directors support their Deaf part-time ASL faculty.  Christine has her master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Communications, Deaf Studies, and Linguistics and a bachelor’s degree in Deaf Studies, both from CSUN.  In Christine’s spare time, she enjoys baking, reading, working out, and spending time with her family.

Alexandria Hollett

Alexandria Hollett received her doctorate in Curriculum Studies and Gender Studies from Indiana University in 2020. As both a teacher and a researcher, she specializes in queer, antiracist, arts-based, and anti-oppressive approaches to education. Formerly a public school teacher and union delegate in Chicago, Alexandria was a Faculty Fellow at IU, a recipient of the Alan Wardell Award for Queer Advocacy in Education, and an Audre Lorde Days invited speaker at Tulane University. She co-organized Inaugurate the Revolution, a day of community action and solidarity following the 2016 election, and has extensive experience with activism, coalition organizing, and event planning. In addition to her studies and activisms, she is also a spoken word poet, emcee, teaching artist, and performer.

Samantha Toews

The Special Education Department is proud to welcome a Matador to our ranks! Dr. Samantha “Sami” Gross Toews (pronounced “Taves”) is a recent graduate of the University of Kansas’ Special Education program. At CSUN, she double majored in Liberal Studies and Spanish Language and Culture. Her MA, also from CSUN, was in extensive support needs. Prior to her doctoral program, Dr. Toews was a teacher at WISH Charter Middle School in Los Angeles.

Dr. Toews had an outstanding record of achievement at the The University of Kansas (UK). She was a graduate research assistant and project coordinator for a large grant examining outcomes for all students in general education settings. In addition to her stellar academic record, Dr. Toews published seven articles in highly reputable publications and has two additional publications under review. She presented at 20 conferences: seventeen refereed and three invited. The University of Kansas honored Toews with four prestigious awards, including the Special Education Department Scholarly Presentation award. Dr. Toews has a passionate commitment to inclusion, equity, and social justice. She will strengthen the Department’s social justice and inclusive values.

Connie Wong

The Special Education Department is thrilled to welcome Dr. Connie Wong to our ranks. Dr. Wong is an experienced faculty member, having served as an early childhood tenure-track faculty member at Cleveland State University and as an adjunct at CSU Los Angeles and San Diego State University.

Dr. Wong received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her BA was in Biology and Education and MA in Special Education from the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Wong has a strong record of research. She served as a research scientist on numerous studies, including early childhood intervention studies at the (a) Rady Children’s Hospital, (b) University of California, San Diego, and the (c) Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Wong has presented nationally and internationally with over 25 publications in prestigious journals. Dr. Wong’s seminal co-publication (with Samuel Odom et al.), “Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comprehensive Review” has thousands of downloads and is considered the “gold standard” publication in the field of autism and evidence-based practices. The Department is excited to have Dr. Wong join us. We are confident she will strengthen our robust research agenda.