Sara Ann (Sally) Beach, PhD
Sara Ann (Sally) Beach is a Professor of Literacy Education and the Grant Family Presidential Professor in the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education. A former elementary teacher who taught in Texas, Korea, Newfoundland and Great Britain, Professor Beach has worked for the past twenty years supporting education for democracy in Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, and most recently in Armenia, Kenya, and Uganda. She regularly presents the work of her international research teams (with members from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Romania, Slovakia, Kazakhstan) at US and international conferences on literacy research and instruction and has published invited and peer reviewed research and practitioner articles in journals in the United States and internationally. Her research includes early literacy, teacher development, critical literacy, literate identity, and opportunities for engaged learning in international settings. In 2017 she received the Pederson Award for Exceptional Mentoring of Graduate students from the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education and the Norman Vice President for Research award for International Engagement from the University of Oklahoma. She has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on $2.8 million of external grants.