Luimil Negrón-Pérez | lmngd5@mail.umsl.edu University of Missouri – St. Louis Senior Graduate Student Representative
Luimil Negrón is a doctoral student in education and research assistant at the University of Missouri- St. Louis. Ms. Negrón has dedicated the last few years to strengthening the bonds between communities and schools, first, through her work as a practitioner working with Latinx college students and their families, and then, as a scholar and doctoral student working to understand the consequences of school reforms in under-privileged Black communities. Her current research uses ethnographic and historical methods to understand how the Black community in St. Louis has in the past and in the present for better schools. When she is not focused on her projects or studying the consequences of urban education reform in communities, Luimil can be found playing her violin or listening to live music.
Ronald Cunningham | rocunnin@iupui.edu Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Junior Graduate Student Representative
Ronald Cunningham has served as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal, and district director for school systems in the District of Columbia, Atlanta, Oakland, Cleveland, and Indianapolis for the last 25 years. He is currently a dual degree PhD candidate in the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis School of Education and law student at the IU McKinney School of law. Ronald also functions as the K-12 education director for the IndyEast Promise Neighborhood, assistant instructor in the School of Education at Indiana University, teacher evaluator for Teachers of Tomorrow, and alumni admissions officer for Georgetown University. In addition to his current role as the junior representative for Division G, his other service work includes co-chairing the newcomer and membership committees in the Education Law Association, and graduate editor/assistant to the editor-in-chief for the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Ronald’s graduate work is situated at the intersection of race, policy, and education. His most recent publications include To CRT or Not to CRT: The Impact of Anti-CRT Legislation on K-12 Teaching and Learning (featured in the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society) and Estrada v Becker: Defining “Legal Presence” and Implications for DACA students (featured in West’s Education Law Reporter). His dissertation explores the impact of Florida and California anti-CRT legislation on standards-based K-12 instruction and cognitive rigor.
Meet our wonderful MSO subcommittee members! In addition to planning the Division G Pre-conference seminar, MSO organizes different events and engagement opportunities to support graduate students such as self-care and wellness workshops as well as reading groups.
Adrianna González Ybarra |agfyg@umsystem.edu University of Missouri – Columbia Representative
Adrianna González Ybarra is a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri (MU) in the Learning, Teaching and Curriculum Department. She is a Gus T. Ridgel and Sharon Adair Cinelli Fellow at MU. Adrianna’s educational training in Ethnic Studies programs further guides her research practices and frameworks. Her research interests include working with and alongside Black, Indigenous Preservice Teachers of Color to illuminate their schooling experiences. Theoretically, she draws upon critical race theories and Women of Color feminisms, and methodologically, she utilizes decolonial methodologies and testimonio to story their lived experiences, meaning making processes, knowledges, and literacies. ORCID # 0000-0002-9207-8969.
Amira Nash | amira-nash@uiowa.edu University of Iowa Subcommittee Co-Chairperson
Amira Nash is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iowa pursuing a PhD in Teaching and Learning in the Literacy, Culture, and Language Education program. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, educational policy, and educational equity related to Black Language and Black students identified as English Language Learners. She earned both her BA in Psychology and MA in Teaching, Leadership and Cultural Competency from the University of Iowa. Amira also serves as the Associate Director of Partnerships and Programs in the Baker Teacher Leader Center at the University of Iowa College of Education. Prior to this role, Amira taught high school social studies and students identified as English Language Learners for four years.
Carl Donovan Greer | cdgreer@wisc.edu University of Wisconsin-Madison Representative
Carl “CJ” Greer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with a doctoral minor in Qualitative Research Methodology in Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Leveraging critical qualitative approaches, Greer’s research explores three areas: (1) the relationship between community-based educational spaces and PreK-12 schooling institutions, (2) how youth display leadership and activism in and outside the classroom, and (3) Critical Race Theory in education. Greer is a UCEA Barbara L. Jackson Scholar, Institute for Research on Poverty Fellow, and Morgridge Center for Public Service Fellow. Currently, Greer’s dissertation labor takes up a year-long critical ethnographic case study approach in offering insights into the limited exploration of the greater Milwaukee area PreK-12 education landscape and Midwestern youth education activism. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, Greer earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a dual master of Educational Leadership and Policy and Social Work at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor.
Jenna Gabriel | gabrielj@vcu.edu Virginia Commonwealth University Representative
Jenna Gabriel (she/her) is an educator, artist, organizer, and mother living and working in Richmond, VA, where she is currently a doctoral candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her dissertation, Navigating the co-constructions of ableism and anti-Black racism in a post-Brown, post-Massive Resistance, metro-Richmond art classroom: A Discourse Historical Approach, traces how discourses of race and disability evolved in mid-20th century Richmond, how such discourses sustain race-based segregation in present-day area schools, and makes visible the strategies of resistance that are possible in the art room. Jenna is an adjunct instructor at VCU, where she teaches undergraduate and masters coursework related to sociopolitical struggles in education and social foundations, as well as practicum coursework on supporting disabled students in art education. She holds a BFA in Drama from New York University and an EdM from Harvard University.
Kenesma D. John | k.john@ufl.edu University of Florida Subcommittee Co-Chairperson
Kenesma John is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida, where she is pursuing a degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration on Teachers, Schools, and Society, while also pursuing a minor in women’s studies. Kenesma’s identity as a second-generation Caribbean American guides her research agenda which is centered around Black Girlhood Studies, Black Feminist Thought, Black Immigrants’ Experiences, and Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and writing blog pieces for online magazines, using her life experiences as inspiration for the books she writes. Additionally, she loves traveling to new places with her husband and their puppy.
Marie Wagner | marie.wagner@ku.edu University of Kansas Subcommittee Secretary
Marie Wagner, MM, MAT (she/her) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Special Education in the Policy and System Studies specialization. Marie’s research focuses on redesigning teacher preparation through participatory design to prepare teachers to teach for difference and diversity. Her most recent study used intersectional feminist theories to examine how inequitable macro-level policies manifest in individuals and are perpetuated using social markers of difference such as ability and race. Marie’s experiences as a special education teacher in New York City and Kansas City inform her lines of inquiry.
Meet our brilliant SMT team! This subcommittee connects Division G graduate students using a variety of social media platforms and provides them with technical assistance during GSEC-planned events and other virtual networking engagements.
Jana L. Pickart | jpickart@umass.edu University of Massachusetts – Amherst Subcommittee Chairperson
Jana L. Pickart (she/her) is a poet & peacebuilder, a radical educator, a disability culture maker, and a Ph.D. student in Language, Literacy & Culture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she works as a Learning Specialist with the Office of Disability Services. Jana has twice been awarded fellowships from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned her Masters in Arts Politics, to create and exhibit original artworks. Her doctoral research at UMass is focused on investigating how the state-funded, adult ed ESOL classroom enacts a site where artmaking as a community practice can provide liberatory dreaming space for students to express their multilingual identities beyond the White gaze. Her dream is to found a tuition-free community English school for adult immigrants that creates access and inclusion for those of us with sensory, cognitive, embodied, and felt differences as a necessary component of antiracist organizing.
Caroline Chubb | cchubb1@student.gsu.edu Georgia State University Representative
Caroline Sutton Chubb is a third year PhD student at Georgia State University (GSU), where she is pursuing a degree in Educational Policy Studies with a concentration in Research, Methodologies, and Statistics. Caroline is a first-generation immigrant from Brazil, and has previous experience in several functional areas of higher education, including advising, teaching, curriculum design, and student programming. Caroline has earned a BA in Political Science and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Central Florida. She also has a Master of Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Her research interests include methods for meta-analysis, and program assessment and development in higher education, especially programs serving minoritized populations.
ben ray | baray1@crimson.ua.edu University of Alabama Representative
ben ray is a doctoral student at the University of Alabama in the Educational Leadership, Technology, and Policy Studies department with a concentration in Social and Cultural Studies. They are primarily interested in the philosophy of education, artificial intelligence, and critical posthumanism. ben currently assists their advisor, Dr. John Petrovic, in managing the Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education journal. Prior to joining the SCS program, ben holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of Alabama and taught as an undergraduate instructor in the Department of Gender and Race Studies.
Joyce Koo | joyceck@umd.edu University of Maryland, College Park Representative
Joyce Koo has taught, tutored, and coached students in a public elementary school in Baltimore and in college classrooms at the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland. She is currently a second-year doctoral student in the Educational Policy and Leadership Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland. Prior to this, she earned a B.A. in English Literature and Cultural Anthropology, Master of Public Policy, and J.D. from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in Biological Sciences and M.P.S. in Industrial Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland. Joyce has worked in higher education for over six years. Her research interests include the historical contexts of higher education, identity and belonging of racial minorities in higher education, the call for disaggregation of Asian subgroups in education research, and policies and practices focused on underserved populations.
Jordana Simmons| simmonsje@rowan.edu Rowan University Representative
Jordana Simmons (she/her) is a second year PhD student at Rowan University and is enrolled in the Urban and Diverse Learning Environments concentration of the Access Success and Equity program. Jordana works with the Partnership for Equity, Education, and Research (PEER) which partners with K-12 public school districts in southern New Jersey and leads them in equity centered professional development. In addition to her work with PEER, Jordana works as a Student Success Coach and Equity Coordinator in the Black Horse Pike Regional School District. Prior to beginning her PhD journey, Jordana was a high school English teacher which has contributed to her research interests. She often draws from Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, and Transformative Learning Theory as she works towards developing and delivering transformative professional development to educators as well as exploring the educational experiences of students of color.
Kayla Larkin | kxl859@miami.edu University of Miami Representative
Kayla Larkin (she/her) is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Miami in the Department of Teaching and Learning’s Special Education program, where she works as an undergraduate and graduate instructor to pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and student-athletes. She also serves as the graduate student coordinator for InspireU Academy and as a university supervisor to student-teachers. Her teaching and research are rooted in abolition, anti-racism, and culturally and historically responsive teaching. She is interested in community-based participatory action research and Special Education teacher preparation that enhance these pedagogies across K-12 schools and university settings. Her work is informed by her nine years of experience as a teacher and teacher-leader in Washington D.C. and New York City.
Shawn Patterson | darlshawn@usf.edu University of South Florida Subcommittee Secretary
Darlshawn (Shawn) Patterson is a Ph.D. student in the Literacy Studies program at the University of South Florida (USF). Her research interests align with her passion for literacy equity. Specifically, she is interested in exploring the influence of policy on literacy experiences and outcomes, seeking to understand how educational policies can shape students’ learning journey; this includes examining historical policies and their lasting impact on literacy disparities in the present day. Outside of her academic work, Shawn enjoys traveling, staying active, and spending time with her friends and family.
Mark White | mewhite8@wisc.edu University of Wisconsin-Madison Representative
Mark is a fourth-year doctoral student in the University of Wisconsin – Madison Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis program, concentrating on Policy Analysis and Evaluation. He is interested in school choice and its effects on the school district, specifically, focusing on how regional and national politics and several forms of school choice obstruct opportunities for children and families from historically excluded backgrounds and how within-district white and middle-class flight alter funding streams for the public system.
Meet our incredible Campus Liaison team! This subcommittee works directly with campuses to form connections with individual institutions to facilitate networks of Division G graduate students!
Jiadi Zhang | jiadiz2@illinois.edu University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign Representative
Jiadi Zhang is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy Education program in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign. She is multilingual and speaks Mandarin, English, Korean, and Japanese. Zhang’s research interests include exploring Chinese-English translanguaging, bilingualism, critical biliteracies, teacher education, Asian American children’s literature, and language ideologies. Her work is guided by a sociocultural perspective that acknowledges minoritized communities’ daily literacy and cultural practices conducted with different modes and across named languages as legitimate knowledge. She believes the cultural, linguistic and historical knowledge students bring into the classroom could leverage their learning, including academic performance.
Yvette M. Regalado | yvette.regalado@txstate.edu Texas State University Representative
Yvette M. Regalado’s research and professional foci contribute to advancing and advocating for underserved Students of Color (SOC) in higher education. As well as amplifying their voices and validating their experiences in these postsecondary settings. Her research employs a theoretical framework of culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy, community cultural wealth, counterstorytelling, and Indigenous Pedagogy. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Texas State University. Yvette is a dedicated Indigenous & Latina practitioner-scholar-activist passionate about creating research that aims to address gaps in the existing literature and advance the understanding of the intersectionalities of the underrepresented Practitioners of Color (POC) through the methodology of counterstorytelling. Her research seeks to illuminate the voices and experiences of POC and how they embed culture and community pedagogical practices in their literacy curriculum. As a literacy leader and expert in her field, she is committed to challenging the prevailing deficit narratives surrounding SOC in the current curriculum.
Our committee facilitates nationwide discussions between faculty and graduate students concerning the relationship between educational processes and the social contexts of education in which they occur. We continue our webinar series, providing graduate students with opportunities throughout the year to have these conversations with scholars whose work and research focus on all the various social contexts of education. To remain connected to the DivG community and events, follow @aeradivg on Twitter, join the group “*Official* AERA Division G: Social Context of Education” on Facebook, and follow @aera_divg on Instagram.
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Division G Calendar, where you can find information about Division G webinars, brown bags, award deadlines, and more!