AERA Announces 2019–20 Minority Dissertation Fellows
AERA Announces 2019–20 Minority Dissertation Fellows
 
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June 2019

AERA has announced the recipients of the 2019–20 AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research and Travel Awards. The program, targeted for members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in education research, offers dissertation fellowships to outstanding minority graduate students and provides mentoring and guidance toward the completion of their doctoral studies. An important aim of the fellowship is to enhance racial and ethnic diversity of faculty, scholars, and researchers who study topics in education research. 

The five new fellows and four travel awardees are in the final stages of their dissertation studies across a broad range of topics in education research (see table below). This year’s funded projects examine topics such as the school-to-prison pipeline, public school governance, school choice preferences, student activism, language education, STEM learning, university expansion, and diversity management in higher education. Many of the studies examine educational issues relevant to racial and ethnic minority students, their communities, and their schooling. These studies apply rigorous quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods in their design and analysis. It is anticipated that they will make a significant contribution to education research and policy as well as inform teachers, administrators, and other practitioners who work with children, youth, and young adults.

2019–20 AERA Minority Dissertation Fellows in Education Research and Travel Awardees
Recipient Doctoral Institution Dissertation Title
Dissertation Fellows
Connie Barroso Garcia Florida State University Growth, Fixed, and Maybe More? Investigating the Conceptualization of Intelligence Mindsets in Math
Jario Funez-Flores Purdue University An Ethnographic Inquiry of University Student Activism
Lauren Ilano University of California, Los Angeles Urban University Expansion on Contested Terrain: Assessing the Impact of Growth on University-Adjacent Neighborhoods
Gaurav Jashnani City University of New York Getting Free & Feeling Free: Race, Power, & Affect in the 2015 University of Missouri Protests
David McMillon University of Chicago

Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Three Essays on the Policy Implications of Systems Thinking

Travel Awardees
René
Espinoza
Kissell
University of California, Berkeley From “School System” to a “System of Schools”: A Comparative Case Study of District Governance in Shifting Urban Landscapes
Chantal Hailey New York University Choosing Schools, Choosing Safety: The Role of School Safety in School Choice
David Song Stanford University Bilingualism Among Chinese American and Chinese Immigrant Youth: Language as Resource and Identity
Naomi Thomson Indiana University Weaving Together: Exploring How Pluralistic Mathematical Practices Emerge Through Weaving


The fellows were awarded a $19,000 stipend to complete their dissertation research and training. The fellows and travel awardees also received up to $1,000 for travel expenses to attend the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, where they will meet with the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Selection Committee members and other senior scholars as part of a mentoring and career development workshop. Awardees will also present their work to the education research community in a poster session during the 2020 Annual Meeting.

The AERA Council established the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program in Education Research in 1991, setting aside funds to support stipends, Annual Meeting travel, and professional development. AERA and its leadership are committed to providing a program of capacity-building and training opportunities for scholars from racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in education research.

The AERA Minority Dissertation fellows are selected on the basis of their potential as faculty members or education research scholars, the contribution of their dissertation study to education research, the rigor of the research methods used to conduct the study, and the implications of the research. Recent fellows are now faculty members at leading research institutions, including Arizona State University, Salem State University, the University of Chicago, the University of Delaware, and the University of Houston. Other recent fellows are conducting research at university-based research centers or applied research organizations. Their research has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to our understanding of educational issues.

“The new cohort of fellows are developing research that promises to enhance and expand our understanding of important and timely topics in education,” said George L. Wimberly, AERA director of professional development and diversity officer. “We are pleased and excited to support this research and help build research capacity among these outstanding graduate students.”

The application deadline for the next Minority Dissertation Fellowship competition is November 1, 2019. For further details about the program, eligibility requirements, and application instructions, visit the AERA Funding Opportunities webpage or email the AERA Fellowships Program at fellowships@aera.net.