2018 AERA Fellows
2018 AERA Fellows
 
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Click the name to jump to each fellow's citation of accomplishment and introductory video.

Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Arizona State University

Dr. Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy is a pioneering educational anthropologist and a thought leader in higher education for American Indian and Alaska Native students. His article “Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education” has been widely cited in scholarly literature and stands as a seminal contribution to the field. He is also recognized for co-authoring the influential article “Culturally Responsive Schooling for Indigenous Youth,” the only contemporary meta-review of scholarship on this issue. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, Dr. Brayboy was the first Native American elected president of the Council on Anthropology and Education. He serves as co-editor of the Journal of American Indian Education, the oldest scholarly journal devoted to Indigenous education issues, and directs the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State University. Dr. Brayboy’s interdisciplinary scholarship has advanced our understanding of the social, philosophical, and educational experiences of Indigenous peoples and has fostered the next generation of Indigenous scholars.
James Earl Davis, Temple University

Dr. James Earl Davis’s cutting-edge scholarship has focused on the intersections of gender, race, and class in students’ schooling experiences and outcomes. His research reflects his long-standing interest in how substantive questions of access and equity are enacted in the daily lives of students. Dr. Davis has examined gender studies, gender equity, and social equality to provide a new lens on academic engagement and achievement for African American boys across the education pipeline. He has also focused on the structure of schools and school programming, and their effects on students representing diverse ethnic, gendered, and racial communities. Widely recognized as an outstanding teacher and mentor, he has shaped new discourses on the intersectionality of students’ identities, opportunities to learn, and school and social interactions. Dr. Davis’s contributions to research on urban schools and the sociology of education have greatly enriched the field, and have supported efforts to improve equity in academic achievement and school success.

Douglass N. Harris, Tulane University

Dr. Douglas N. Harris is a preeminent educational micro-economist who has helped shape both the scholarship and the policy thinking around education reform. His interdisciplinary approach draws upon economic and sociological perspectives to examine measurements of educational productivity, the role of test-based accountability, and incentives and markets for schooling. He is widely known for his statistical work examining value-added methods for teacher evaluation and distinguishing the contributions of school and nonschool factors to student learning and achievement. Dr. Harris is founder and current director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, an organization dedicated to understanding the post-Katrina educational marketplace. His groundbreaking work on school improvement has incorporated data from multiple voices, ranging from students, teachers, and parents to policy makers, community activists, and system-level leaders. Dr. Harris’s work has helped inform and influence national debates over a range of education policies, including charter-based school reform and college access, all with the aim of improving lives through better schooling.

Etta Ruth Hollins, University of Missouri, Kansas City

Dr. Etta Ruth Hollins is a recognized scholar and a national leader in the field of teacher education, focusing on the preparation and professional development of teachers   in urban schools. Her highly cited publication Culture in School Learning: Revealing the Deep Meaning has helped teachers improve their classroom instruction by understanding the importance of ethnic identity and culture as a foundational tool for teaching diverse learners. Dr. Hollins has examined the impact of culture on teaching through a variety of lenses, from social ideology to teacher belief systems, and from community cultural practices to the everyday life of classrooms. She has championed practice-based design of teacher education programs with a constructivist, sociocultural perspective on learning. She led programmatic reforms and redesigns while a full faculty member at four universities and helped create the blueprint for redesign at three additional institutions. Dr. Hollins’s scholarship has focused sustained attention on issues of culture, racism, and equity, and has helped transform teacher education and teaching to better serve marginalized students.
 

Robert T. Jiménez, Vanderbilt University

Jimenez2636601143625984972Dr. Robert T. Jiménez is one of the nation’s leading scholars in reading and literacy education for Latinx and nonnative English speakers. By combining social, cultural, economic, political, and linguistic perspectives, his work has broken new ground and established new understandings of how bilingual readers learn successfully. Dr. Jiménez’s studies of Mesoamerican literacies, funded by three Fulbright awards, have been foundational to the field. By drawing connections between literacy practices in Mexico and texts found in largely immigrant communities, he has shown how diverse cultural materials can be used by teachers to engage students and improve literacy. He also led the development of an instructional intervention called TRANSLATE, leveraging students’ first-language strengths to improve their comprehension of English language texts. He is known for his mentoring of young scholars and his leadership through organizations including the Literacy Research Association. Dr. Jiménez’s scholarship has had a major impact on the theorizing of reading and literacy education and has led to improved instructional designs for nonnative English-speaking students.
 

Danielle S. McNamara, Arizona State University

mcnamara1Dr. Danielle S. McNamara has had a substantial impact on theory, empirical research, and practice in literacy and learning. Drawing from the disciplines of education, neurobiology, cognition, linguistics, and technology, she has profoundly changed how scholars understand the very nature of text. Dr. McNamara’s theoretical work has advanced our understanding of what makes text challenging for readers to comprehend, and her extensive empirical research has helped develop resources to address those challenges. Her series of free game-based literacy tools and intelligent tutoring systems have been used by thousands of students and teachers to improve reading strategy acquisition, text comprehension, and writing. She is a highly prolific scholar and mentor and has served as president of the Society for Text and Discourse for the past several years. Dr. McNamara’s work has provided researchers and educators with the means to better understand the nature and structure of text, with the ultimate goal of improving educational opportunities for students who would otherwise struggle to succeed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Judit N. Moschkovich, University of California, Santa Cruz
                                 

MoschkovichDr. Judit N. Moschkovich has made substantial contributions to academic scholarship and professional service in the areas of mathematical education, language, and equity. Her innovative research uniquely addresses intersecting issues of mathematical thinking and teaching, social justice, and academic literacy, particularly as they affect bilingual students. By focusing on the resources that Latinx learners bring to math classrooms, Dr. Moschkovich has challenged existing perspectives in the fields of mathematics and second language acquisition. She has produced groundbreaking theoretical research on mathematical learning and its relation to practices and discourse, classroom participation, and the use of multiple resources in communication. She is a prolific writer, dedicated to sharing her research nationally and internationally, and is widely recognized for her extensive record of professional service to the field, including work with the National Academy of Sciences and the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction. Dr. Moschkovich’s outstanding scholarly contributions have helped shape current perspectives on language and equity in mathematics education.

Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University

ReardonDr. sean f. reardon is a preeminent educational policy scholar of the causes, patterns, and consequences of social and educational inequality. His examination of residential and school segregation and racial-ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement is groundbreaking. He has used multiple data sets to demonstrate the rapid increase in the achievement gap between children from high-and low-income families. Another of Dr. reardon’s major contributions is the development of methods for measuring social and educational inequality, including the measurement of segregation and achievement gaps. He created the Stanford Education Data Archive, which includes student test scores and school and neighborhood records for every district throughout the United States, and has become an invaluable resource for education researchers. His vision and expertise in linking and analyzing multiple datasets have advanced understanding of pressing educational issues in policy settings and in national public discourse. Dr. reardon’s groundbreaking work has illuminated the causes and consequences of unequal educational opportunities in schools and neighborhoods throughout the country. 
 

Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, Stanford University
 

Ruiz_PrimoDr. Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo is a distinguished researcher working at the intersection of assessment theory and science education. Her scholarship is grounded in theory and research on the nature of cognition and learning. Dr. Ruiz-Primo’s early work included the use of concept maps and performance assessments to significantly augment typical ways of measuring student knowledge and understanding. Her study of sequential analysis, which captures and analyzes patterns of multiple teacher-student interactions, has also provided a vital new perspective to formative assessment. Dr. Ruiz-Primo has addressed larger systemic assessment issues with applications for policy and practice, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences. She has advanced our understanding of what it takes to design instructionally informative assessments and to create professional development programs to enhance teachers’ use of effective assessment practices. Dr. Ruiz-Primo’s groundbreaking work has helped make science assessment instructionally sensitive and supportive for practicing teachers to help improve student learning.
 

Katherine Schultz, University of Colorado, Boulder
 

SchultzDr. Katherine Schultz is a leading expert on teaching and teacher learning, addressing issues related to equity, diversity, access, and opportunities for minority students. Her broad scholarly range encompasses the disciplines of educational anthropology, urban education, literacy, and curriculum. Dr. Schultz has provided sustained leadership in the field and in her institutions, including founding and directing the Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, and creating the Center for Urban Schools and Partnerships at Mills College School of Education. She has also served as president of the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropological Association. Her co-authored book School’s Out! helped launch a new area of scholarship on students’ informal learning. Her innovative research on teacher listening examines how teachers can work across cultural and linguistic differences and reorganize classroom interaction to establish trust. Dr. Schultz’s culturally informed and culturally responsive scholarship has helped better prepare teachers to create more equitable and just classrooms.
 

Gary Sykes, Educational Testing Service
 

Sykes2Dr. Gary Sykes is a leading authority on the study and reform of teaching as a profession, working at the front lines of educational practice, research, and policy for the past 40 years. His work has advanced our understanding of teacher quality, including what teachers need to know, what good teaching is, and how it can be developed and assessed. Early in his career, he helped develop what became the groundbreaking National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. More recently, at the Educational Testing Service, Dr. Sykes spearheaded the Understanding Teaching Quality Center, developed the National Observational Teaching Examination, and created innovative assessments for beginning teachers. He has been a leading and convening voice for translating scholarship into policy and implementing reforms in classrooms, schools, districts, and state agencies. Across his distinguished career in higher education, the federal government, and education research, Dr. Sykes has been both a pioneer and a thought leader on education reform focused on the development and support of teachers.