Gallaudet warmly welcomes two new faculty members to campus this fall. Both are alumni, have taught as adjuncts here, and are all about giving back to their fields and the next generation of Gallaudet students.
Dr. Adele Ann Eberwein
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership, School of Language, Education, and Culture
For Dr. Adele Ann Eberwein, ‘97 & EDS ‘06, joining the Education program as a faculty member feels like coming full circle, since she earned her B.A. in Psychology and her Ed.S. in Change Leadership from Gallaudet. “I am excited to bring my experience while continuing to learn alongside my students and colleagues,” she says.
Eberwein has worked in many roles over the past 25 years, from an elementary classroom teacher specializing in bilingual language arts and K-12 mathematics, to principal in elementary and middle schools. She has also taught in teacher preparation programs, and especially enjoys working with those who share her passion for teaching deaf students.
“Nothing quite beats being a classroom teacher, working directly with students and creating opportunities for them to take the lead in their learning and discover what excites them,” she says.
Her research involves pedagogy and viewing comprehension of deaf students, focusing on designing inclusive strategies that reflect their diverse linguistic and cultural identities.
“One ongoing challenge is ensuring that deaf students’ visual ways of learning, languages, cultural identities, and intersecting identities are truly recognized and valued. As educators, our responsibility is to embrace the whole child, work alongside families, and ensure students have full access to language, learning, identity, and belonging,” says Eberwein.
Eberwein will be teaching remotely from her home in Southern California. She says, “I am looking forward to reconnecting with familiar faces, meeting new ones, and becoming part of the Gallaudet community in this new role. Most of all, I am excited to work together, share ideas and experiences, and continue learning from one another.”
Lu Ming
Lecturer I, Information Technology, School of Science, Technology, Accessibility, and Public Health
It’s pretty exciting when one year’s commencement speaker becomes faculty the next. After Lu Ming, G-’25, graduated with honors from the Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy (AHHP) program, she started working as an adjunct faculty member, teaching Database Fundamentals and Accessibility Standards in the School of Science, Technology, Accessibility, and Public Health (STAMP).
Initially nervous from having 11 pairs of eyes trained on her in the first class she taught, she says that over time she got to know each student’s personality and strengths. To help students understand and apply technical concepts, Ming incorporates interactive, collaborative activities in class.
On the research side, she has always been fascinated with something she has relied on for most of her life — captions. The challenge is finding the balance between accessibility and clarity, says Ming. “Features like color, formatting, and speaker identification can be useful, but too much information can increase visual and cognitive load, while too little may leave out important context,” she says.
“There’s not a ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to accessibility,” she says. “Instead, we have to provide more options, from A to Z. If we have enough options, people can make choices for what works best for them.”
This relates to one of Ming’s observations, that students in the same class can come from very different backgrounds, which can shape how they approach learning. “As a new teacher, I’m still figuring out what works best for different students, and I’m learning to be more thoughtful about how I present and explain the material,” she says.
Find your fresh start in Education or Information Technology.
