Allison Levine joins the University of Iowa College of Education this fall as an assistant professor in the Rehabilitation Counseling program. 

Levine received a master of education degree in rehabilitation and mental health counseling from Hofstra University in 2012 and a doctorate in rehabilitation counselor education from Michigan State University in 2018. Most recently, Levine worked as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky from 2018-2021. 

Levine was drawn to Iowa by the Rehabilitation Counseling program where the faculty are extremely well known and highly regarded in the field. Levine says she was also struck by the level of commitment to and support of new faculty, and she says she is excited about the opportunity to collaborate with the many accomplished researchers and educators in the Counselor Education department as a whole. 

Levine loved counseling, but saw an opportunity to contribute to improving the ways her colleagues or peers would treat clients with the more challenging symptoms of mental illnesses they saw during her time in the field. 

“I felt that I would be able to make a positive impact on future clients by teaching future counselors in ways that would help them to be more empathetic and less biased,” Levine says. 

Levine is most passionate about developing research that is accessible and grounded in disability justice. 

“I am dedicated to using my voice as an academic to denounce the systemic oppression and ableism which pervades most institutions in our society,” Levine says. “I hope and plan to continue working toward developing research, which not only decreases biases and discrimination, but also to do so in concert with members of the disability community, allowing those voices to be involved and at the forefront of the work being done.”  

Levine’s research focuses on improving education and counseling experiences of people in the disability community by understanding and decreasing disability biases among counselors and educators, especially regarding implicit biases. This goal is also served by research on the ways counselor educators enact pedagogy and assessment, and how to improve the application of socially just ideals in counselor education programs and classrooms. 

Professionally, Levine is most proud of being awarded the Dr. Daya Singh Sandhu Research and Innovations in Counseling Award from the Kentucky Counseling Association for her work on professional disposition evaluation in rehabilitation counselor education in 2020.