Dr. T. Philip Nichols is an associate professor of English education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction. His research focuses on how science and technology condition the ways we practice, teach, and talk about literacy, and the implications for equitable public education.

Dr. Nichols is currently working on several projects. First, he examines how the concept of "innovation" gets mobilized in public school reform and the competing interests and imperatives that drive these efforts. This is the focus of his book, Building the Innovation School: Infrastructures for Equity in Today's Classrooms (Teachers College Press, 2022). Second, he explores emerging platform architectures (e.g., hardware, software, algorithms, data, code) and their uneven impacts on literacy education and civic learning. Third, he is studying the political history of "media education" and its work in bridging Cold War social science, aesthetics, and English/literacy pedagogy. This was the focus of his 2021 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

He holds a Ph.D. in Literacy, Culture, and International Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned an M.A. in History and Sociology of Science.

Dr. Nichols is currently accepting new Ph.D. students.

Degrees

Ph.D., Literacy, Culture, and International Education
2018 | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

M.A., History & Sociology of Science
2016 | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

M.A.Ed., English Education
2010 | Arcadia University, Glenside, PA

Select Publications

• Phi Delta Kappan, 12/2022
  "De-escalating Dataveillance in Schools"
  with co-author Dr. Alexander Monea, George Mason University
• Harvard Educational Review
  "Platform Studies in Education"
  with co-author(s) Dr. Antero Garcia, Stanford University
• Teachers College Press, 05/2022
  "Building the Innovation: Infrastructures for Equity in Today’s Classrooms"
• Curriculum Inquiry, 2021
  "Media Education and the Limits of Literacy"
  with co-author Dr. Robert Jean LeBlanc, University of Lethbridge
• Educational Leadership, 05/01/2021
  "Innovating from the Ground Up"

Awards & Honors

• Early Career Achievement Award - 2022 | Literacy Research Association
• Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship - 2021 | National Academy of Education
• Spencer Dissertation Fellowship - 2017 | National Academy of Education

Professional Leadership

• Editor, Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education (English) - 2021-2024 
  (English/Language Arts); National Council of Teachers of English / Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education.

Courses

• Issues in Diversity (Doctoral Seminar)
• Young Adult Literature (Undergraduate)
• Advanced Qualitative Methods (Doctoral Seminar)
• Design-Based Research (Doctoral Seminar)
• Social Issues in Education (Undergraduate)
• Media Literacy (Graduate Seminar)
• Fundamentals of Curriculum (Doctoral Seminar)