Faculty Profiles

Dr. Deirdre Cobb-Roberts

Professor and program coordinator, Social Foundations of Education

Cobb-roberts headshot

Email: cobbrob@usf.edu

Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies and serves as coordinator of the Social Foundations in Education Program. Additionally, she is a USF faculty affiliate within the Higher Education & Student Affairs Program and Women and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Cobb-Roberts is a former McKnight Faculty Fellow. Dr. Cobb-Roberts received her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Her research focuses on gendered racism in the faculty and administrative ranks of Black women in higher education. She interrogates the structures of power that potentially affect the interpretations of institutional climates, cultures, and experiences, as well as the mentoring practices and performance as Black women administrators.

Dr. Cobb-Roberts’ publications include multiple book chapters and articles in the History of Education Quarterly, American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Teacher Education, International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice, Educational Considerations, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning and NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education, amongst others. She has a co-edited a book, Schools as Imagined Communities: The Creation of Identity, Meaning and Conflict in U.S. history, a co-authored book, Black Women, Academe, and the Tenure Process in the United States and the Caribbean, and just completed a third book (co-edited), Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis: Storying the lives and Contributions of Black Women Administrators.