My research addresses issues of teacher development centered on justice-oriented practices and pedagogies and teachers’ self-empowerment using critical perspectives and aligned methodologies including critical racial paradigms. Drawing on the knowledge of practicing teachers and teacher educators, this work includes various critiques of and alternatives to high stakes exams used for the professional certification of teachers. My policy research and advocacy focus on recognizing and strengthening a diverse teaching workforce in service of larger educational aims, including sustaining children’s cultural and linguistic heritage, and providing high standards of care and education in and beyond childhood. My dissertation and first full-length manuscript center the experiences of New York City early childhood Teachers of Color as a first step in redefining quality on teachers’ own terms. Additional scholarship, including conference presentations, has emphasized various gradations of teachers’ self-empowerment, literacy learning across disciplines and age spans, the role of art in English language arts education, and the use of teacher research in the development of pre- and in-service teachers.

From a critical and race critical perspective, my teacher education practice centers on human development, writ large. In teacher education courses, this means connecting students’ understandings of their own development to the development of students in their classrooms.  In addition, I leverage my past experience as a high school English and college writing teacher as a current early childhood and literacy teacher education generalist in service to teacher development. In short, I promote pre-service teachers’ active engagement in classroom inquiry as critical, collegial members of larger professional learning communities. My students are active in professional organizations and present at conferences. Most recently, seven students presented their work at the 2020 and 2021 Penn Ethnography Forums.

• Language Development and Literacy
• School and American Societies
• Social Studies in Early Childhood Education
• Student Teaching Seminar in ECE
• Language and Emergent to Fluent Literacy
• School, Family, and Community
• Supervision of Student Teachers
• Visiting Reader for University of Viçosa

Ed.D., Interdisciplinary Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University
Ed. M., English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
M.Ed., English, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
B.S., English Education, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

New York State Certification  

• Early Childhood Education Professional Certificate | Pending, Expected 3/2024
• English Language Arts 7-12 Professional Certificate | Active, Issued 3/2019
• English Language Arts 7-12 Initial Certificate | Active, Issued 3/2019

Edited Journal Issues

Gediel, A., & Buffalo, G. (Eds.). (2023).  Linguística Aplicada em interface com a Educação/ Linguistic studies: Applied linguistics in interface with education. Gláuks ONLINE Journal, 23(2). https://www.revistaglauks.ufv.br/Glauks/issue/view/33
 

Journal Articles

Buffalo, G., & Souto-Manning, M. (2023). Building knowledge together: erikson institute president, Mariana Souto-Manning, on the unfinished lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Gláuks ONLINE Journal, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.47677/gluks.v22i2.401

Gediel, A., & Buffalo, G. (2023). Linguística applicada em interface com a educaçâo: Nae além da pandemia de Covid-19: Abordagens crítica. Gláuks ONLINE Journal, 22(2). DOI: 10.47677/gluks.v22i2.399

Buffalo, G., & Gediel, A. (2023). Applied linguistics interfacing with education in and beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic: Critical Approaches. Gláuks ONLINE Journal, 22(2). DOI: 10.47677/gluks.v22i2.399

Farias, R.P., & Buffalo, G. (2023). “You Get to a Point Where You Get Tired”: Transforming Brazilian Early Childhood Teachers’ Agency. Gláuks ONLINE Journal, 22(2). DOI: 10.47677/gluks.v22i2.315.

Mitchem, M., Buffalo, G., Pérez, A., and Rollings, E. (2019). Tales of Existing & Resisting as
Female Teacher Educators in Neoliberal Times. The New Educator,
https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688X.2019.1681570*

Vetter, A. & Russell, G. (2011). Taking a cross-country journey with a world map: Examining the construction of practitioner identities through one case study.Education Action
Research, 19(2), pp. 171-187
 

Book Chapters and Reference Entries

Souto-Manning, M., Buffalo, G., Emerson, A., & Kirton, T. (in press). Whiteness in teacher education. In R. Milner & J.S. Bennett (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Justice in Education. (pp. XX-XX). Bloomsbury.

Souto-Manning, M., Buffalo, G., & Rollings, E. (2021). The language debt owed to raciolinguistically- and ethnolinguistically-minoritized students. In R. Milner & S. Lomotey (Eds.), Handbook of Urban Education (pp. 253-266). Routledge.

Souto-Manning, M., Buffalo, G., & Rabadi-Raol, A. (2020). Early childhood teacher certification as a site for the re-production of racial and cultural injustice. In E. Swadener & S. Kessler (Eds.), Education for Social Justice in Early Childhood (pp. 46-58). Routledge.

Russell-Buffalo, G. (2014). Henry Giroux and the “crisis” of 21st Century education. In S. Totten & J. Pederson (Eds.), Educating about social issues in the 21st Century, Volume 4: Critical pedagogues and the theories. (pp. 169-192). Information Age Publishing.

Russell-Buffalo, G. & Stanford, N. (2014). Pedagogy of reinvention: Paulo Freire in 20th and 21st Century Education. Educating about social issues in the 21st Century, Volume 4: Critical pedagogues and the theories. (pp. 71-93). Information Age Publishing.

1.  
2. Buffalo, G. (2022, April). Partisan Politics and the Decline of Race-Conscious Policies in North Carolina’s Teaching Fellows Program (1986-2014). American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference, San Diego, California.
    
3. Farias, R.P., & Buffalo, G. (2022, April). “You Get to a Point Where You Get Tired”: Transforming Brazilian Early Childhood Teachers’ Discourses. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference, San Diego, California.
    
4. ​​​Buffalo, G. “Explorations with Young Children in Diverse Contexts: Supports for Curriculum, Instruction, and Inclusion.” New York Association for the Education of Young Children, Online, April 15-18, 2021.
    
5. Camillo, J., Lago, L., Mattos, C., & Buffalo, G. “Monological education and pandemic: ‘The return of those who never went.’” AERA Annual Conference, Online, April 8-12, 2021.  
    
6. Buffalo, G. “A Confluence of What Counts as Quality in the Education of Young Children: Reports from a Women of Color Focus Group.” NCTE Annual Conference, November 19-22, 2020. 
    
7. Mitchem, M., Buffalo, G., Pérez, A.Y., and Rollings, E. “Justice-Informed Teacher Education Beyond Neoliberalism and Patriarchy: Early Career Teacher Educators Theorize Teacher Educator Preparation.” AERA Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, April 17-21, 2020 (Conference Cancelled). Buffalo.
    
8. Mitchem, M., Buffalo, G., Pérez, A., and Rollings, E. “Tales of Existing & Resisting as Female Teacher Educators in Neoliberal Times.” AERA Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 8, 2019.*
    
9. Buffalo, G. “New York City Early Childhood Teachers’ Construction of Teaching Quality in a Time of High-Stakes Certification.” AERA Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 7, 2019.
    
10. Buffalo, G. “Unpacking the Student Teaching Seminar.” Paper presented in symposium entitled Unpacking Unflattening: Interdisciplinary and Multimodal Inquiry in Teaching and Research. AERA Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 6, 2019.
     
11. Walker, D., Buffalo, G., & Lopez, A. “A Definition of Schooling as We Know It: The Beginning of the End.” AERA Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 6, 2019.*
     
12. Buffalo, G. “Building Your Own Text Set.” CUNY ALST Faculty Panel [Invited Presentation], New York, NY, December 8, 2015.  
     
13. Russell-Buffalo, G. and C. Gustafson. “Uncertain Knowings: A Dialogue on (Re)Thinking Aesthetics in English Language Arts.” NCTE Annual Convention, Boston, MA, November 23, 2013.*  
     
14. Russell, G. and C. Gustafson.  “Uncertain Knowings: A Dialogue on (Re)thinking Aesthetics in English Language Arts.” WLU Literacies for All Institute, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, July 20, 2013.*  
     
15. Russell, G. and K. Hutton. “Artist Romare Bearden as Literacy Sponsor, or What the American Master Artist Can Add to the NC Classroom this Year.” North Carolina English Teachers Association Conference, Charlotte, NC, September 29, 2012.*  
     
16. Russell, G. “Peter Elbow’s Vernacular Eloquence Across the Curriculum.” North Carolina English Teachers Association Conference, Charlotte, NC, September 29, 2012.
     
17. Russell, G.  “Vernacular Eloquence and Multiple Literacies in and Out of School.” Symposium on the Teaching of Writing with Peter Elbow, Amherst, MA, June 7, 2012.  
     
18. Russell, G. “The Reluctant Feminist.” Research on Women in Education Conference, Houston, TX, October 28, 2011.  
     
19. Vetter, A., Russell, G., Myers, J., Wrobelski, H., and Marty, M. “Advancing Literacy through Teacher Research.” NCTE Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, November, 2009. 
     
20. Russell, G., W. Duffy, A. Benson, and M.B. White. “Coming Clean: Understanding Literacy through Ideological Self-Revelation.” Expanding Literacy Students Conference, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, April 5, 2009.*  
     
21. Vetter, A., Reynolds, J., and Russell, G. “Turning Points: The Process of Becoming a Teacher Researcher.” NCTE Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, November, 2008.  
     
22. Russell, G. “Writing Across the Curriculum.”  Elkin High School, Elkin, NC, March 2007.
     
23. Russell, G. “Writing Across the Curriculum.”  Page High School, Greensboro, NC, February, 2004. 
     
24. Russell, G. and K. Hutton.  “The Art of Language and the Language of Art.”  North Carolina English Teachers’ Association Annual Conference, Durham, NC, October 14, 2006.*  
     
25. Russell, G. “More than Machines: Using Focused Reflections to Help Students Own Their Writing.” North Carolina English Teachers’ Association Conference, Charlotte, NC, October 1, 2004.   
     
26. Russell, G., J. Milner, and K. Bowen. “Supporting Writing Projects in North Carolina.”  North Carolina Association for Curriculum Developers and Supervisors, Pinehurst, NC, February 2004. 

2023 Teaching and Teacher Education (Division K) Recognition of Service as an Outstanding Reviewer.
Presented by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). 

2020 New York City Early Childhood Research Network Early Career Scholar Award. Presented by the New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute (PDI). $5,000

2020 Teaching and Teacher Education (Division K) Invited Graduate Student Mentoring
Session.
Presented by the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

1997 North Carolina Teaching Fellows Scholarship (Full Scholarship).
Presented by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and the Public School Forum. $32,000