Biography

Dr. Kara Ieva is currently a Professor in the Counseling in Educational Settings program at Rowan University. In addition to her current position in Counselor Education, her educational career spans over 20 years as a former Spanish teacher and professional school counselor. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish Secondary Education and Master’s of Education in Secondary Education Curriculum and Administration from Towson University. Additionally, she earned her Master’s of Education in School Counseling from Loyola College in Maryland and her PhD in Counselor Education for the University of Central Florida. Kara’s areas of research interest include promoting equity and wellness in education for children and adolescents of marginalized populations: in the areas of college and career readiness, social/emotional development, and group counseling. She provides professional development to K-12 school counselors, teachers, and administrators on how to embed social/emotional development into curricula and strategies for cultivating an emotionally safe and welcoming mental health and neurodiverse culture in schools. She created and facilitates the New Jersey School and SAC Counselor Online Collective, which started out of necessity during the multiple pandemics, and current today, offered supervision /peer consultation to all the counselors in the state. Kara holds multiple leadership positions for national and state professional counseling organizations. She serves on the editorial review board for Professional School Counselor Journal published by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). Dr. Ieva’s scholarship includes multiple peer review articles, book chapters, newsletter and magazine articles, and technical writing/ evaluation reports. Further, she serves as the former PI and current Director of Academic and Student Services for the Rowan University's pre-college access programs that aid first generation and under-resourced college students in post-secondary preparation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Education, Arts, and Mathematics (Aim High; STE2AM). Lastly, she serves as the evaluator on multiple Foundation and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, and the Co-PI for an NSF Grant, Broadening participation in STEM through Virtual Reality Career Exploration: Introducing Underrepresented Students to High Need STEM Careers. Her grants to date total $1,844,236.