Kelly Wissman

Kelly Wissman

Associate Professor & Dept Co-Chair
Department of Literacy Teaching & Learning
School of Education

Contact

Catskill 355
Education

PhD, University of Pennsylvania 
 

Kelly Wissman
About

Dr. Kelly Wissman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning at the University at Albany. Across her scholarship and teaching, she considers how children’s literature, writing, and the arts can facilitate the creation of more equitable and humanizing educational spaces for all students. Her research and teaching interests include children’s literature; sociocultural approaches to writing; practitioner inquiry; the interplay of literacies, identities, and equity; and multimodal composing. She pursues these interests through collaborative, arts-based, and ethnographic research methodologies.

Dr. Wissman is the Director of the Capital District Writing Project (CDWP), a site of the National Writing Project. The CDWP is a vibrant network of K-16 educators working to enhance the teaching of writing within the Capital Region’s schools and to create a future where every person is an accomplished writer and engaged learner. The CDWP was recognized with a 2020 President’s Award for Exemplary Public Engagement and recently received funding for project entitled Freedom Dreaming for Educational Justice. This project will bring together a diverse coalition of writers, artists, educators, K-12 students, and community members to create multimedia “education freedom dreams” to be exhibited in a range of virtual and campus spaces.  

Dr. Wissman’s research has been funded by the National Council of Teachers of English Research Foundation, UAlbany’s Faculty Research Awards and StAR programs, and the Longview Foundation for World Affairs and International Understanding. She is the co-author of Teaching Global Literature in Elementary Classrooms: A Critical Literacy and Teacher Inquiry Approach. This multi-vocal book explores how K-6 teachers infused diverse texts into their classrooms and found support for their endeavors in a teacher inquiry community. Dr. Wissman’s publications have appeared in several journals, including, Research in the Teaching of English, Anthropology and Education, Children’s Literature in Education, Journal of Children’s Literature, The Reading Teacher, and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.

From 2015-2021, Dr. Wissman served as a Co-editor of Language Arts, the premiere journal for the teaching of the language arts at the elementary and middle school levels. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Children’s Literature and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.

Dr. Wissman has received recognition for both her scholarship and her teaching. In 2006, she was awarded the Selma Greenberg Dissertation Award from the Research on Women and Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. She is also the recipient of the 2010 Virginia Hamilton Essay Award Honor Certificate for an article in Children’s Literature in Education. She has received an Excellence in Full-Time Teaching Award from UAlbany’s School of Education and has been named an “Educator of Excellence” from the New York State English Council. In 2016, she received a President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University at Albany and in 2017 she was honored with a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the State University of New York.  In 2021, the International Literacy Association named her the Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading.