June 2023

AERA has announced the 2023–24 recipients of its Minority Dissertation Fellowships and Travel Awards. In a highly selective process, AERA’s Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research Program awards fellowships or travel funding to members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in education research, and offers mentoring and guidance toward the completion of their doctoral studies. An important aim of the fellowship is to enhance the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty, scholars, and researchers across the education research field.

The 15 new awardees are in the final stages of their dissertation studies across a broad range of education research topics, such as familial influences on students’ academic development, college campus climate, issues affecting minority-serving institutions, and student and teacher experiences in K-12 schools. Many of these studies focus on specific racial or ethnic groups or view their subject matter through a social equity lens. The awardees are from a range of disciplines and subfields across education research, including curriculum and instruction, higher education, psychology, and sociology.

2023–24 Minority Dissertation Fellows and Travel Awardees
Dissertation Fellows
Recipient			Dissertation Title
	Demeturie Toso-Lafaele Gogue University of California–Los Angeles		The Undercurrents of Institutionalization: How AANAPISIs Navigate a Racialized Process to Promote Pacific Islander Student Success
	Samantha Ha DiMuzio Boston College		Beyond Safe Space: A Philosophical and Participatory Design Inquiry into the Affordances of “Safe-Enough” Places for Undergraduate Students of Color
	Theodore Johnson University of Nebraska–Omaha			Siloed Voices with a Resounding Experience: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Experiences of Black HBCU Aviation Students
	Michelle Para University of California–Santa Cruz			Desiring a Better Life: Heteronormativity, Education, Migration, and Generational Negotiations among US Latinas
	Jackie Peng University of Maryland–Baltimore County			Raising Mixed Kids in the “Burbs”: Mixed-Race Families Navigating Race, Identity, and Discrimination in Suburban Schools
	Carla Wellborn Vanderbilt University			Exploring Black Parental Power: How Black Parents (Re)imagine Black Education Through Homeschooling
Travel Awardees
	Kate Baca University of Colorado			Teacher Histories in Communities of Color
	Khrysta Evans University of Wisconsin–Madison			Locating the Geographies of Black Girlhoods in Education Research
	Melissa Garcia Indiana University–Bloomington			Asian and Latiné College Experiences in Panethnic Student Organizations
	Erin Manalo-Pedro University of California–Los Angeles			Searching for Racial Health Equity in Schools of Public Health
	Estafani Marin University of California–Irvine			Overlooked Family Members: How Siblings in the Racial Middle Support Educational Journeys
	Monique Perry University of Pennsylvania			Supporting Sexuality Education Pedagogy: A Cross-Curricular Analysis in Middle School Classrooms
	Raquel Rose New York University			Roses in the Educational Margins
	Kailea Saplan University of Wisconsin–Madison			Setting the Scene for Equity-Centered Assessment: An Ethnographic Case Study of Assessment Culture in a School-Based, Artist-in-Residence Program
	Hannah Valdiviejas University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign			The Twice-As Phenomenon: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Links to Self-Regulated Learning

The program awards dissertation fellows a $25,000 stipend to complete their dissertation research and training. Travel awardees receive funds to attend the AERA Annual Meeting. All awardees will present their work in an invited poster session during the 2024 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, where they will meet with the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Selection Committee and other senior scholars as part of a mentoring and career development workshop.

Recent fellows have gone on to faculty, postdoctoral, and research positions at leading teaching and research institutions, including Purdue University, RAND, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Vanderbilt University, as well as at think tanks and community-based organizations. As early career scholars and researchers, they are developing new and innovative studies and publishing peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports.

AERA Council established the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program in Education Research in 1991 to support outstanding graduate students as they develop their research and begin their careers. 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.

“We are excited to support these exceptional graduate students and their promising dissertation research,” said George L. Wimberly, AERA director of professional development and diversity officer. “The fellows and travel awardees are developing significant work that will undoubtedly expand knowledge across key areas of study.”

This is a highly competitive program that funds the strongest research on topics across education, school and schooling processes, and student experiences. The selection committee seeks proposals to bring grounded, insightful, and informed perspectives to the field. AERA will begin accepting the next cycle of proposals later this summer with a November 15, 2023, deadline. For further details, please email the program at fellowships@aera.net.