Meet Our Students
HESA’s M.A. and Ph.D. students have an extraordinary range of backgrounds, experiences, research interests, and talents. Below are profiles of just a few of our wonderful students!
Ph.D. Students
Steph Charles
Steph is a third-year doctoral student in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program at The Ohio State University. She is serving as the Student Personnel Assistantship (SPA) GA. She is originally from England, but spent most of her childhood and upbringing in Huntsville, Alabama.
Steph received her undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in History and completed her master’s program in 2017 at the University of Alabama in Higher Education Administration.
Steph is particularly interested in working and researching in the area of student retention and persistence. She has worked in residence life, student success initiatives, programming for students with children, and parent and family orientation.
Some of her favorite things include: her dog Dobby, everything Harry Potter related, Alabama football (Roll Tide!), and anything green.
Tyler Hallmark
Tyler is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program at The Ohio State University. He serves as a Graduate Research Associate with his advisor, Dr. Anne Marie Nuñez. Originally from Oklahoma, Tyler is a first-generation college student and Gates Millennium Scholar. He received his B.A. from the University of Colorado Boulder and his MSEd from the University of Pennsylvania.
Tyler has interned both domestically, with the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education in Washington, D.C., as well as internationally, with Contact North | Contact Nord, a government-funded, non-profit corporation based in Ontario, Canada. His research interests focus on two key areas in higher education: 1) social stratification and equity and 2) institutional climate and culture. In particular, Tyler is interested in examining issues related to social class and exploring how higher education environments may be more supportive of low-income, first-generation students.