Sr. Director: Dr. Jim Baxter

Dr. Baxter’s scholarly interest is in researching new psychometric and statistical techniques to help improve business processes. He has written papers on the validity of Artificial Neural Nets and has worked on the development of psychometric surveys to improve public hiring practices. His education includes a Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology, a Master’s of Science in Industrial Organizational Psychology, and a Bachelor’s in Psychology. Over the years he has provided psychometric and statistical expertise for large organizations including Princess Cruises where he continues to oversee production of advanced statistical models. Dr. Baxter has been assisting doctorial candidates with their dissertation projects for many years. He understands how the doctorial candidate feels and continues to work on simplifying the dissertation help process to reduce doctorial candidate’s associated stress and uncertainty.

Sr. Director: Dr. Kate Emmons

Dr. Kate Emmons has extensive experience in seeing doctoral candidates through to graduation. She is currently chair of several dissertation committees in accredited Ph.D. programs and serves as faculty on many other dissertation committees. Scholarly writing support is her specialty, and she has years of experience helping graduate learners in all stages of their writing projects. Dr. Emmons has published in peer-reviewed journals and is currently working on graduate-level course materials. She received her Ph.D. (Education) in 1994 from U.C. Santa Barbara. Dr. Emmons has years of teaching experience, holds a California Teaching Credential, and is also a published children’s author.

Sr. Associate: Dr. Elizabeth Bruch

Dr. Elizabeth Bruch has worked in graduate education since 1992, first serving as the Dean of Graduate Programs at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minnesota and then as Dean of Education at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and at Capella University. At Capella University since 1998, she was the first Dean of the School of Education. In 2003, she became a Senior Faculty member and moved to fulltime teaching in the School of Education. In 2007 she moved to part-time status. Her graduate degrees are from Indiana University (MS) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D). During her tenure as a graduate faculty member, she supervised many dissertations as chair, and served as committee member on others. She has been highly respected in her roles as dissertation mentor and dissertation research course instructor, as she has helped hundreds of Ph.D learners reach their goals. Currently, she also serves as a Peer Evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission.

Associate: Dr. Jennifer McLean

Dr. Jennifer McLean has been teaching and working with graduate students since 1998, and has worked as a higher education administrator for nearly seven years. Her graduate degrees are from the University of Illinois (MSPH), The Pennsylvania State University (MEd) and Capella University (PhD). She holds a graduate certificate in distance education and is completing an additional graduate certificate in institutional research. Jennifer has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and has gained recognition for her writing through awards and republication. She serves on the editorial board of two journals and reviews grant proposals for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Dr. McLean's specialization is in teaching and learning, and she holds particular passion for academic writing and working with graduate students.

Associate: Dr. Robert Zenhausern

Dr. Robert Zenhausern taught statistics and research on the undergraduate and graduate level at St. John's University for 35 years until he retired. During that time he mentored over 100 MA theses and Ph.D. dissertations many of which were published and has a record of over 200 publications and paper presentation. His main area of research was in Neuropsychology which he has applied to perception, clinical psychology, learning, and education with an emphasis on learning disabiity. Dr. Zenhausern in an expert in data analysis using Excel in conjunction with standard statistical packages such as SPSS on the graduate level. He was an early adopter of online education and used a computer for distance learning since 1979. For the past 10 years he as served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the Enabling Support Foundation, a non-profit organization with a mission of serving persons with disability and K-12 education.

Associate: Dr. Arnav Sheth

Associate: Kerry Mitchell

Associate: Dr. James Stacks

Dr. Stacks is currently serving as chair on several dissertation committees. He is an expert in psychological measurement and research design. He has developed and taught statistics and research design courses in both traditional and online settings for 10 years. He has publications in the field educational measurement as well as health services measurement and stress. He also has a background in physical science measurement from several years work in analytical chemistry, and serves as a consultant to engineering firms in environmental analysis. He is a full time Research Associate for PRO-ED, Inc., an international publisher of educational psychometric tests. Dr. Stacks received his Ph.D. in psychology from Texas A&M-Commerce in 1998 and is on the faculty of the Harold Able School of Psychology at Capella University.