Only Boring People

Dr. Shana Carpenter is a Professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University and has extensive research on best retrieval practices.

Andrew Butler is an Associate Professor of Education and Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Butler's research focuses on how the process of retrieving memories affects the content and phenomenological characteristics of those memories. We talked about his undergrad, dissertation, and research experiences, and then transitioned into the tension between des...

Mark A. McDaniel is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE) at Washington University in St. Louis. We discussed his 2014 publication, Make It Stick , and the principles, research, and tactics that appear in the book. I shared with him some of my classroom experiences with these techniques and Mark offered some feedb...

Dr. Peter Liljedahl is a professor at Simon Fraser University and a renowned mathematics education researcher. His book “Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics” presents over 15 years of research on… essentially, getting students to do more thinking. It’s a fascinating read and I was really honored that he took the time to speak with me.

Dr. Jodi Magness is a Classical and Biblical archaeologist specializing in ancient Palestine (modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories) from the time of Jesus up to the tenth century. Her research interests include Jerusalem, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient synagogues, Masada, the Roman army in the East, ancient pottery, the Byzantine-early Islamic transition, and Diaspora J...

Dr. Lisa Schrenk is a Professor of Architectural History at the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. She is the author of multiple books, including The Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright; and she is the co-founder of the global Institute for the Study of International Expositions (ISIE). Without further introduction, I give you Dr. Lisa Schrenk.

Dr. Steven Weitzman is a scholar in the department of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and his research specializes in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Judaism and the origins of Jewish culture— and it is my pleasure to invite him back to the show. Without further introduction, I give you Dr. Steven Weitzman.

Dr. Sarah Fine is an educator, ethnographer, and the co-author of In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School. She currently directs the High Tech High Graduate School of Education’s Teaching Apprenticeship Program and also serves as a Lecturer in Education Studies at the University of California San Diego.

Dr. Jal Mehta is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has written extensively on what it would take to improve American education, with a particular focus on the professionalization of teaching. Jal is the author of several books and publications, including… In Search of Deeper Learning, a contemporary study of schools, systems, and nations that are seeking to produce ambiti...

Shamoyia Gardiner is the executive director of Strong Schools Maryland. Shamoyia is a first-generation American, first-generation college graduate from Miami. Due in part to her identities and experiences as a former educator, she’s determined that life is best spent working at the intersection of education, advocacy, and youth development.  Since its inception in 2017, Strong Schools Maryland has...

Amy Junge is a former California public elementary and middle school teacher and assistant principal. She started working with teacher-powered schools in 2009 and was a contributing author for Trusting Teachers with School Success: What Happens When Teachers Call the Shots. Today, Amy is the Director of Teacher-Powered Schools, an organization started in 2014 with the goals of highlighting the suc...

Massimo Pigliucci is currently the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophies like Stoicism and New Skepticism. His most recent book The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders (Basic Books, 20...

Dr. David Bentley Hart is an author. To call him anything else, I found, gets a little tricky. He expressed to me in our conversation, for example, not really enjoying the title of theologian, though many might call him that. Similarly, others might try to categorize him as Orthodox, although again, he tells me he has little interest nowadays in orthodoxy, regardless of whether or not you capitali...

Michael Horn speaks and writes about the future of education and works with a number of organizations to improve the lives of as many students as possible. Michael Horn is the author and coauthor of multiple books, papers, and articles on education, including the award-winning book “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” and the Amazon-bestseller “Blended...

Sharif El-Mekki is the Director of the Center for Black Educator Development (CBED) which he founded in 2019. Prior to that, Sharif was an educator in Philadelphia for nearly 30 years. Sharif served as the principal of Mastery Shoemaker beginning in 2008 and under his leadership the school received a number of notable awards including the 2016 bronze medal on the U.S. News & World Report high...

Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal is the Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religion for eight years and helped create the GEM Program, a doctoral concentration in the study of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism that is the largest program of its kind in the world. He pre...

Kevin O'Brien, SJ, is a Jesuit priest and educator. He has taught and served in the administration at several Jesuit universities, including Georgetown, Santa Clara, and Saint Joseph's and he is passionate about connecting his writing and teaching to the cause of environmental and social justice. He is among the most widely read authors in the field of Ignatian spirituality today. His best-selling...

Dr. Richard Ingersoll is a leading expert on America’s elementary and secondary teaching force. His research examines teaching as a job, teachers as employees, and schools as workplaces—from a teacher’s pre-employment training through their last day in the classroom. After teaching in both public and private schools for a number of years, Dr. Ingersoll obtained a Ph. D. in sociology from the Unive...

Dr. Elizabeth Bonawitz received her Ph. D. from MIT in the brain and cognitive sciences in 2009. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley (from 2009-2013). She was an Assistant and Associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University, Newark from 2013 until 2020 when she moved to Harvard. Currently, Dr. Bonawitz is the David J. Vitale Associate Professo...

Dr. Connie McReynolds is a licensed psychologist and certified rehabilitation counselor with more than 30 years of experience in the field. She has a proven track record of more than 13 years of successful outcomes using neurofeedback with children and adults ages 5-90.  Additionally, Dr. Connie has published and presented internationally on her successful outcomes in treating ADHD in childre...

Kim Marshall was a teacher, central office administrator, and principal in Boston public schools for 32 years. Now, he leads workshops, coaches school leaders and publishes and awesome weekly memo on educational research called The Marshall Memo.

Dr. Kymberly Young is a researcher and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine. Her research focuses on real-time fMRI neurofeedback, autobiographical memory and depression. 

The Quiet Mind Foundation is a public nonprofit and outpatient healthcare practice that provides neurofeedback therapy in the greater Philadelphia area.

Father Bob Daly is professor emeritus at Boston College, where he taught theology for 49 years. 

Fr. Frank Clooney is a Jesuit priest and professor of comparative theology at Harvard University. His scholarship focuses primarily on Catholicism and Hinduism. From 2010-2017 he was the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard. You can find his personal website here .