Rebecca Herr Stephenson earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication from USC and her M.A. in Teaching from LMU. She returned to LMU in 2013 to serve as the managing editor for the Journal of Catholic Education. In addition to working with the Journal, Professor Stephenson teaches qualitative research methods and writing courses in the doctoral program, and since August 2021, she has been serving as interim director of the doctoral program.
Her research focuses broadly on teaching and learning with media and technology. She has published and presented on topics ranging from children’s educational television and video games to strategies for incorporating blended learning into the K-12 curriculum.
She is co-author of two books, Teaching Harry Potter: The Power of Imagination in Multicultural Classrooms (2011, Palgrave MacMillan) and Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with Digital Media (2009, MIT Press).
Currently, she is working on a study of K-12 teachers’ perceptions of the impacts of the current political climate on their students’ experiences at school and is a contributor to the Magic Chair project, a transmedia project dedicated to telling stories about disability.