Curriculum & Instruction (CUIN) Ph.D. student Gang Zhu was chosen from a competitive applicant pool to be a funded graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction’s new Ph.D. in Urban Education Program. Zhu’s area of emphasis in the program is Teaching and Teacher Education.

Zhu received a B.A. (with honors) from Henan Institute of Technology in China and completed his M.A. at the School of Education at Beijing Normal University.

Zhu already has over 10 national and international publications to his credit. About half of these works appear in English; the rest are in Mandarin. Since coming to the U.S., Zhu has also made nine research presentations. The Critical Questions in Education Conference in San Antonio was the most recent conference to which he contributed.  Zhu is also a member of the American Association of Teaching and Curriculum and Phi Delta Kappa.

“Gang Zhu’s most recent article will soon appear in Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, one of the leading national curriculum journals,” said CUIN professor and Zhu’s doctoral advisor, Cheryl Craig.  “He has also had a chapter accepted for a book edited by Vicki Ross, Dixie Keyes and Elaine Chan.” 

Dixie Keyes is a University of Houston, College of Education (UH COE) CUIN Ed.D. Alum and is currently an associate professor at Arkansas State University in the College of Education and Behavioral Science.  She was advised by Craig when she was a doctoral student at UH COE. Elaine Chan is a post-doctoral student who came to work with Craig at UH COE from the University of Toronto in Canada.

The Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction prepares aspiring scholars and researchers to meet today’s challenges to education in multicultural urban settings. The Houston metropolitan area, with over one and a half million K-12 students, is a laboratory of practice for our Ph.D. students from nearby, and from around the world. Here, they can engage in inquiry on critical issues and needs germane to education in an increasingly diverse society.