Education Contacts

Interested in: community education and development, participatory methodologies, program evaluation, international development, positive youth development. Current potential roles: committee member.

Dr. Drape teaches qualitative research methods for the OMALS program. She has chaired several OMALS students, served as a member of other committees, and works with students in OMALS to refine their qualitatively based research project.

As a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education, Niewolny serves as Director of the Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation. Her research, teaching, and extension programming has emphasized the role of power and equity in food systems–based community development from an interdisciplinary and critical social theory perspective. As a scholar-practitioner, her work focuses on the interface of sustainable food systems and the practice and politics of community food work from classroom to community spaces at the local, regional, and global level. 

My research centers on STEM education in agriculture, with a focus on pedagogy that supports systems thinking. I teach ALCE 5054: STEM Integration in Agricultural Education, which is an elective in the OMALS Education Concentration. I serve as committee chair and member for a small number of OMALS students in Edcuation.

My research centers on STEM education in agriculture, with a focus on pedagogy that supports systems thinking. I teach ALCE 5054: STEM Integration in Agricultural Education, which is an elective in the OMALS Education Concentration. I serve as committee chair and member for a small number of OMALS students in Edcuation.