Elina Lampert-Shepel
Associate Professor and Chair of the Education and Special Education Master's Degree Programs
Touro University 
elina.lampert-shepel@touro.edu

Dr. Elina Lampert-Shepel is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Education and Special Education Master's Degree Programs at Touro University. Prior to her current role at Touro University, she taught NYC Teaching Fellows and collaborated with urban teachers, focusing on bringing innovative theory and practice to inner-city classrooms to create meaningful, transformational learning experiences for culturally and socially diverse communities. As a Vygotskian scholar, Elina coordinated the development of a graduate teacher education program grounded in the principles of Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology and activity theory at Eureka University, Moscow, Russia. Her research interests include cultural-historical psychology and activity theory, culture and cognition, learning as praxis, socially constructed and culturally mediated learning and development, communities of practice, and developing and sustaining transformational change in education. Elina has conducted cross-cultural research on the development of reflexivity as a higher psychological function, teachers' learning as praxis, and the development of teachers' transformative agency. She presented her research internationally and worked as a researcher and teacher educator in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and Brazil. Dr. Lampert-Shepel is passionate about developing contexts for human development and innovative programs. She holds an M.Ed. and Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching/Teacher Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Selected Publications 
Lampert-Shepel, E., &  Zimmerman, A. (Eds.).  (2025). Collaborating for Transformative Change: Lessons from within a Teacher Education Coalition. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lampert-Shepel E., & Sullivan-Rubin S. (2023) Dare to Imagine: Creative Scaffolding for Transformative Teachers’ Praxis ISSN: 2189-1036 – The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2023 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2023.29