Jeanne Marie Iorio

Jeanne Marie Iorio is an Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She earned her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching with a specialization in Early Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2007 and an Ed.M. from Harvard University in 2000. Prior to her current position, she served as a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University in Melbourne and as an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Hawai'i–West O‘ahu. Her research, teaching, and writing center on disrupting and rethinking conventional educational practices in early childhood settings, utilizing post-qualitative inquiry methodologies. Key areas of focus include place pedagogies, learning with place, relational ontologies, and pedagogies that foster connections with the more-than-human world. Iorio is actively involved in projects such as Learning with Place and Walking with Lilly, which emphasize immersive nature-based experiences, First Nations worldviews, and climate action through citizen science and sustainability initiatives. She also holds the role of Associate Director of the Global Childhoods Research Hub at the University of Melbourne.

Iorio has made significant contributions to the field through her editorial and scholarly work. She is a co-editor of Rethinking Research in Early Childhood: (Re)Turning the Kaleidoscope (2018) and Meaning Making in Early Childhood Research: Pedagogies of Reconceptualization (2019), the latter of which received recognition for its impact. Other notable publications include Place, Matters of Concern, and Pedagogy: Making Impactful Connections with Our Planet (2017, co-authored with Catherine Hamm), d/Deaf and d/Dumb: A Portrait of a Deaf Kid as a Young Superhero (year not specified in sources), and recent articles such as Provoked by Maxine Greene: Starting Hopeful Conversations-as-Method (2025, co-authored with Will Parnell). Her work has garnered 614 citations on Google Scholar. Additionally, she serves as Commissioning Editor for the Qualitative Research Journal and has been involved in professional development resources like Experience Child-Centered Learning: Beyond the Classroom. Earlier in her career, she received the Critical Issues in Early Childhood SIG Scholarship Award from the American Educational Research Association in 2007.

Professional Email: jeannemarie.iorio@unimelb.edu.au