Swapna Kumar, Ed.D.

Swapna Kumar, Clinical Professor, College of Education

Dr. Kumar is a Clinical Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Florida. She led the design and implementation of UF’s online doctorate in Educational Technology from 2010-2024. Prior to her role at UF, she has held positions in faculty development, learning and performance strategy, and foreign language education.

Dr. Kumar’s research encompasses three major areas. She studies various aspects of online education, with the aim of identifying what constitutes excellence in online education, with a focus on online pedagogy and online program quality. A second strand of her research centers around doctoral education, specifically online and professional doctorates, online supervision/mentoring, and GenAI integration in doctoral research processes. She has led the development of an evidence-based model for a research-focused online professional doctorate (Kumar & Dawson, 2018), and a framework for online research mentoring (Kumar et al., 2018). Third, she explores technology integration in higher education teaching, recently focusing on Generative AI integration in teaching and instructional design.

Dr. Kumar bridges cultures and countries in her work - she was a Fulbright Scholar to Hungary, a Visiting Professor in Germany, and has engaged in several international collaborations.