Faculty & Staff

Faculty

Ruby Joseph, MPA Assistant In Research Phone: 813-974-9339 Fax: 813-974-6133 Office: MHC 2230 Send an email View Curriculum Vitae

 Ruby Joseph is an Assistant-In-Research in the Florida Center for Inclusive Communities, Department of Child and Family Studies.  Her primary interests are in research, evaluation, and service implementation of programs that benefit minority populations and communities. She is particularly interested in issues that affect the mental, educational, and social development of children and youth.

Ms. Joseph is the Researcher for the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY). This program is housed in the Training and Technical Assistance Center (T&TA) in the Florida Center for Inclusive Communities. As the HIPPY Researcher, Ms. Joseph is responsible for program evaluation and research for all HIPPY programs located in fourteen sites across the State of Florida. She is also the Principal Investigator on a longitudinal research study of HIPPY children currently attending elementary school in the Florida public school system. Ms. Joseph is responsible for providing technical assistance and support to Florida HIPPY programs and she trains HIPPY program staff on data collection, conducting assessments, and research and evaluation.

For seven years, Ms. Joseph served as the Principal Investigator/Program Director for the GEAR-UP program, which was a multi-year, federally and locally funded program that served low-income, minority youth by preparing them for graduation and placing them into post secondary careers in vocational/technical schools, community and four-year universities. Her primary responsibilities involved directing and coordinating all major program activities with five full-time GEAR UP program faculty and staff and several part-time tutors.  She collaborated with the School District of Hillsborough County, Hillsborough High School administrators and served as a liaison between the University's GEAR UP program and various community organizations in the Tampa Bay area.

Over a twenty-five year period, Ms. Joseph has worked on several research and evaluation projects locally, nationally and internationally. Her efforts are generally focused on providing interventions and evaluation services in low income, multicultural communities involving families and populations with high need.

Ms. Joseph’s expertise includes both qualitative and quantitative research methods and building community collaborations that foster the delivery of intervention and support programs in the Tampa Bay area and beyond. Ms. Joseph promotes knowledge and scholarship internationally through her evaluation work on a HIPPY program in Liberia. She also provides technical assistance through a University collaboration with the Kwara State University which is proposing to conduct a HIPPY research project in Kwara State, Nigeria.