Professional Biography
Kathy Rho is the inaugural Director, Leadership Initiatives, for the McNulty Leadership Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is responsible for infusing research-based content into existing and new programming that builds awareness of how to successfully lead heterogeneous teams and organizations. She also serves as liaison in building leadership learning opportunities and networks in partnership with faculty, practitioners, and institutions, in and beyond Penn. Prior to joining Wharton, Kathy served as the associate director of the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership at Penn GSE. She continues to teach in the program, an executive-style degree offering for leaders across pre-K–12 education, and previously served as a visiting lecturer in the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Educational Program at Bryn Mawr College.
Dr. Rho began her career teaching high school science before serving as an education program manager for a state-wide workforce development and education agency. With nearly 20 years of project management and leadership experience across different organizational types, Kathy has a demonstrated record of success launching nascent projects, working closely with discipline-specific, cross-discipline, and inter-professional groups of stakeholders. Over the years, she has mentored and advised leaders and educators working in a diverse and wide range of educative workplace contexts and at varying stages of their careers.
She received her doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s in education from Harvard University, and her bachelor’s degree from Smith College. Kathy is a long-time member of the American Counseling Association (ACA) and previously served as Penn GSE’s Plenum Session Representative (PSR) for the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA).
Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Rho’s research interests focus on the influence of social identities on leadership thinking and practice and on reflective practice, more generally, at the individual and organizational level. Her work has centered on leader education and development as well as network building and educational reform. She previously led an interdisciplinary research team exploring the use of in-person simulations in school leadership development and training, the Standardized Professionals (SPs) and School Principals pilot study, a collaboration between Penn GSE and Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Other areas of knowledge and interest include curriculum design and professional development, school and community collaborations, alternative education and in institutionalized settings, youth and family social and health service access and education, and leadership learning networks.
Her publications include an afterword entitled, “Leadership Development for Critical Leadership Praxis,” co-authored with Nikole T. Booker, in the edited volume, Critical Leadership Praxis: For Educational and Social Change (Teachers College Press, 2021). She also co-edited Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance (Teachers College Press, 2018), a volume focused on educational leadership practitioner inquiries with Susan Lytle, James “Torch” Lytle, and Michael Johanek.
