Faculty profile: Janice Byrd

Name: Janice Byrd

Title: Assistant Professor of Education (Counselor Education)

Department: Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education

Phone: 814-863-8115

Email: jzb6540@psu.edu

Office address: 301 CEDAR Building

Directory entry: https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dr-janice-byrd

Byrd comes to the College of Education from Kent State University, where she was assistant professor in the Counselor Education and Supervision program. She earned her doctorate in counselor education and supervision from the University of Iowa and a master of education in counselor education (K-12 school counseling) from South Carolina State University. She has experience in K-12 settings (English teacher and school counseling), with the McNair Scholars Program, Summer Research Opportunities Program, TRIO, Upward Bound and others. 

Byrd also has experience working on teams to facilitate campus and community diversity trainings and has spoken on topics related to anti-racist pedagogy, advocacy and equity in school counseling. Using critical epistemologies, her scholarship seeks to situate the lived experiences of students of color within the broader ecological context to systematically examine how their personal, social, academic and career success is interrupted and/or enhanced by school, family, community settings, relationships and policies throughout all stages of the educational pipeline. 

Her research areas of inquiry are college and career development of historically marginalized populations; the influence of the intersections of race and gender for Black girls and women on their academic, personal/social and career development; and culturally responsive and trauma-informed counseling.

Byrd is the program chair for the Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender special interest group within the American Educational Research Association and co-chair of the Advocacy Interest Network within the Association for Counselor Education & Supervision.