“We are thrilled to welcome Professor Tillman to our ranks,” says Michelle D. Young, dean of the SOE. “She will contribute to the SOE community in many meaningful ways, including working with doctoral students and faculty, supporting the SOE’s DEI work, and assisting us in recruiting a permanent distinguished scholar for our Leadership for Social Justice Doctoral Program.”
Dr. Tillman’s research and scholarship are focused on school leadership, African-Americans in K-12 education, mentoring in higher education, and culturally sensitive research approaches. Her culturally sensitive research framework has been cited and used across many disciplines, including educational leadership, teacher education, and educational psychology, as well as in medical and health-care research at the University of California-San Francisco and the University of Minnesota. Her work has been featured in many publications, including Educational Administration Quarterly, Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, Review of Educational Research, and Teachers College Record.
She is editor-in-chief of the SAGE Handbook of African American Education and co-editor of the Handbook of Research on Educational Leadership for Diversity and Equity (with J.J. Scheurich). Recent publications include “Achieving Racial Equity in Higher Education: The Case for Mentoring Faculty of Color” (Teachers College Record, 2019). She is a former Vice President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the former Director of the Barbara Jackson Scholars of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA). She is also a recipient of UCEA’s Jay Scribner Mentoring Award.
Dr. Tillman has been featured in Education Week and on the PBS news program, “The Takeaway.” She has served as a consultant for many organizations, including school systems, universities, state departments of education, the federal government, and private foundations.
In addition to her role at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Tillman has held faculty positions at the University of New Orleans and Wayne State University in Detroit, and has been adjunct professor at Teachers College-Columbia University in their Urban Education Leadership Program. Her background as a former public-school teacher and administrator at the high-school level has informed her work and scholarship in her field.
She received a B.S. in secondary education from The Ohio State University, an M.S. in Educational Administration from the University of Dayton (Ohio), and her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from The Ohio State University.
