Rodney Hopson, Ph.D. serves as Professor of Evaluation in the Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Previously, he served as Professor, Division of Educational Psychology, Research Methods, and Education Policy in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University and as Hillman Distinguished Professor, Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership in the School of Education, and teaching faculty member in the Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research and Honors College in the School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University.

As the first born of two passionate and lifelong learners and teachers, I am blessed to inherit a spirit of resolve and perseverance, an unwavering commitment to my fellow man, and an increased desire to leave the world a better place than the one into which I was born. It is these qualities that I have attempted to nourish and expand during my professional academic and administrative career. I find the rewards and challenges of teaching extremely exhilarating and I hope and imagine myself tapping into and exposing my students, young and old, to an unraveling and a reopening of their intellectual growth, interests and passions, sometimes despite their initial frustrations and unwillingness.