Megan Wiedbusch
University of Central Florida | Member since 2019

AERA is a great way to connect with people and talk about policy and other types of areas of education we don't typically get to work with. I'm in an interdisciplinary program, meaning I work with engineers and computer scientists all the time. This is one of the conferences that is very educational focused, where we can talk about theory and the impact of pedagogy and instructional decision making.

Being a member is great. You get to support a great program that brings students in. I love the STEM work that a lot of them do.

And then you also get to connect with people that are making a difference in education, making sure that we're moving in the right direction. This is one of my favorite conferences to come to. I come every year.

I've been coming since 2020. We come to present, we're with Division C, along with SIG 17, the Complexity Work, and SIG 27 with the SSRL SIG. So we like to communicate with other researchers, find out what our colleagues are doing, and connect for future conferences and papers.

Octavio Pescador
Los Angeles Unified School District; UCLA | Member since 2007

AERA is a magnificent organization. In fact, it's the premier organization, educational organization in the country, especially for young aspiring educators, researchers. This is the place to meet mentors.

This is the place where you can enrich your perspective in terms of your research, what you want to do, where you establish networks for the rest of your life. So it's a magnificent opportunity for everyone to join. If you think about opportunity cost or investments, the best thing you can do as a young scholar or as a graduate student is participate in this particular association because it gives you, it opens the doors to academia, to nonprofits, to many places where you can use what you're studying, your skills, get employment, but do something good for the world.

It's not just about you, it's about the world. And this is, this organization has that in mind.

Ruth Cuasialpud-Canchala
University of Arizona | Member since 2025

I think the most important value is connecting with other Indigenous scholars that are also working towards supporting Indigenous students thriving higher education. So this, being here at AERA, getting to know other Indigenous scholars, getting to know how they are working and impacting Indigenous communities has been so important and inspiring for my own research project. So I have to thank AERA for these spaces and for bringing this community together.

The most important lesson for me from seeing other Indigenous thrive, for example, seeing other doctorate students and scholars thriving in academia, is a really important lesson for me because that shows me that the pathway is not just here, but farther. We can open further pathways for other Indigenous like me that come behind, learning from them, from their experiences, from their knowledge. I think it's so relevant.

Aloysius Anyichie
Brandon University | Member since 2015

There are so many values. One is that it exposes me to so many great and incredible scholars. When I was in grad school, actually I became a member I think 2014 or 2015, since then till now I've been a member.

So while in grad school, I saw the people whose work I was reading, the authors that are shaping the field of motivation, self-regulated learning. And so now as a faculty member, I continue to connect with people. It offers me opportunity to collaborate with people, to see how people are doing exactly the same thing I'm doing in the ways they're doing it in their different contexts.

And interestingly this year, I am the chair of Self-Studying and Self-Regulated Learning SIG. And so it offers me this opportunity to serve a particular SIG because I'm a member of AERA.

Augustine Owusu Achiaw
Clemson University | Member since 2025

So as an international student, I need to build a community for myself to be able to do a lot of great things, a lot of great research. Coming to AERA is to network and get people, get my community, get people to do research together, to collaborate. And it's a networking opportunity for me, finding myself in a new environment.

I need to get people on board and explain some of the things that is happening to me to be able to understand the context I find myself. So in order to do that, I need to get people and that is why I come for AERA. And the other side is that coming to AERA gives me an opportunity to present my ideas and get feedback.

I believe that we have a lot of great minds coming to AERA, so when I present my ideas, I get very important feedback to be able to refine and improve my research. The kind of people you meet and how people are tackling the same problem that you want to solve, what people are doing about it, that's amazing. So you have your own ideas of addressing the issue, somebody has their own ideas of addressing the issue, that is where we have the blend.

Krishna Cart
George Washington University | Member since 2025

Whenever I come to AERA, I find another perspective, another approach, another methodology to hone my own research and to contribute more to the field. So I learn and I contribute. So that's the beauty of coming to this AERA annual event.

The more perspective that you get from different angles, that's, I think that's much better. The diversity of the multidisciplinary approach and the people coming from different cultures, different backgrounds, different universities, different countries, that's, I think that is priceless.

LeNaya White
University of Pennsylvania | Graduate Student

I've been actually wowed. I really want to get into education research as I develop my career as an educator because I want to get into curriculum and policy design. So just hearing all the different backgrounds from how educators, researchers, social workers, scientists are basically like collaborating and combining their background knowledge in order to feed into new education is great.

And it's just been kind of nice to hear the different ways in which people think about education and how they collaborate like the histories of what's happening before and what's happening now and like, you know, combining those things together. I hope to build a better network as an educator. I want to be able to figure out where I really want to be as an educator because there are so many realms and pathways to follow.

So just getting my footing and figuring out how I can be the most impactful in the world of education. Thank you AERA for expanding our opportunities to get involved in educational research and making things possible for educators like me.

Bhushan Dahal
Florida State University | Graduate Student

This is my third time in AERA and I have loved being bere. I mean, yes, the paper presentation, whatever we do is important, but I love meeting people. I love talking about people.

For example, like this morning, there's a professor in John Hopkins. Her name is Epstein. I have been citing her work forever and she was walking across me. I'm like, oh my God, there's a professor who I've been citing forever. I just went to her, introduced myself, shared an email, take a picture. Those moments where the person that you have basically read throughout grad school, you met them, you have a coffee with them, you share your smile, your joy, that's AERA.

For a scholar like me, A, I'm a graduate student, B, someone coming from international, where unfortunately we don't have a conference of this scale and this magnitude. Giving a platform where you can meet scholar, academician, practitioner from all around the world, doing all kinds of work. I mean, I don't want to take this for granted. So really extremely grateful for AERA for this opportunity.

Ryan Sermon
University of Arizona | Member since 2025

The connections have really been great. I've been able to meet people and reconnect with people that I saw at other conferences like the sociology ones, because that's really my discipline. So it's been just great to reconnect, talk to more people, meet new people, look at new potential collaborations that exist that we can foster together.

You know, I think when you decide to go and take advantage of professional development, you always want to think about what's close to you, what's regional. This is definitely one of the premier educational research conferences out there. And so if you're attending, you're going to get a lot of insight.

You can also delve into other disciplines as well. So definitely worth it to attend and to make those connections.

Theodorea Regina Berry
Montclair State University | Member since 1999

I've been a member of AERA since 1999 when I was a graduate student and I'm currently serving as the Vice President for Division B Curriculum Studies for AERA. I think it's important that for someone like myself who's been in the field for almost 30 years and who has gained a lot from being a member of this association and gained a lot from being privileged enough to serve in academia, to be able to help others to do this. But it's also important to engage in this work so that educational research is part of the conversation in relationship to how we move through the world.

It's important in relationship to the policies that are set locally, regionally, and nationally. It's important that we consider research and data to inform decisions that are impacting on communities and it's important even as we think about people who are in sort of what my parents used to call the golden years of their lives to understand how educational research informs how we care for those individuals who have contributed to society long before we were on the planet.

Meya Hargett
Pepperdine University | Member since 2025

This is my first conference, but I've been a scholar with them for two years in that Division G writing group. There's 134 Black scholars in there and we've held each other up and it's been amazing and changed my life. And we have 51 doctors just in this year alone that are Black, and I'm so proud of that.

And I'm sticking with them through my whole dissertation process. So I thank AERA for that. And that's community though. Those are the branches I create. That's what I write about and talk about. It does exist. So the narrative is we don't take care of each other, but AERA has offered me that safe space and that community that I already knew would be there where we take care of each other.

Kimisha Simpson
Ignite Jamaica Fund; St. Joseph's University | Educator and Faculty Member

I'm very excited to continue my journey with AERA. I heard from colleagues the importance of attending the conference. Not only is it the research that's being highlighted and the platforms that educators are being given here, but it's also community and finding community and like-minded people that you can learn from formally in sessions and then also informally just through dialogue and discourse.

So that has been very rewarding for me and as a K-12 practitioner and then also as a faculty member, it's been a really nice balance of both worlds, I feel like coming together and getting information that I can take back to many of my groups and institutions.

Lin Xiang
University of Kentucky | Member since 2009

I attended AERA when I was a graduate student. I always view AERA as a really, really critical resource for me. So I came here, connected with the researchers with similar interests and also get to know like the most recent study and then kind of get inspired of all these new ideas in my field.

And also I feel like I always get a very constructive feedback when I present my work here. It's a really, really important resource for me. I will continue to attend.

Penny Pasque
The Ohio State University | Member since 2005

As a higher education researcher, my chair was higher ed policy and very quantitative research. So it was really AERA where I had a chance to work with qualitative scholars that were beyond the field of higher education. That's one of the things I think is brilliant about this association is we often get so siloed into our specific area of ed tech or of language literacy or higher ed for me, and we get so siloed that we don't often connect across the field with that breadth and depth, and AERA allows you to do that.

I worked with Division J here at AERA, and then since that time, I've really come to love and study qualitative methodologies and methods and non-methodologies and methods and work with some of the Division D Section 3, which is Qualitative, but also with the Qualitative SIG. So whether it's through the SIGs and Divisions that I'm involved in or whether it's with the socials, I know people chat about receptions and, oh, it's the fun thing, but that's actually where I have worked with colleagues to come up with a new research idea or a grant submission or let's connect with this foundation that's now supporting research that we're doing. So the opportunities that are here are, I think, beyond what some people or even me, beyond what I realized as I was coming up as a scholar.

Azaria Cunningham
Boston University | Member since 2020

So AERA has been super helpful to me in allowing me to connect with people who are in alignment with my research goals. In addition to that, I feel like when I'm here I find my community and I just feel supported and strengthened in the work that I'm doing currently. A lot of my work is community-based or community-engaged research, so I feel like this profession forces you to be in silos, and I feel like I wouldn't have come as far as I have without community.

And I was saying earlier, being at AERA is, for me, a family reunion because I'm able to connect to scholars globally, not just in the U.S., but also outside of, like, international contexts and talking about what their research looks like in that space and how my research looks like in this space. We are able to progress and keep in touch virtually, but this space offers, like, the in-person connection that I'm missing at my home institution.

Arnob Kumar Saha
University of North Texas | Member since 2024

AERA has always been helping me to understand what are the research work that are going on in my field in that specific type of field that I'm currently working on and understand and learn from other researchers, scholars that really helped me to stay motivated as a doctoral student because I'm pretty new in this area and connecting with a lot of other doctoral students understanding what they're going through and especially as an international student when I hear stories from other international students that really helped me to stay motivated and you know be driven in my research work because research works are very long, very lengthy so sometimes it really helps to you know understand and hear stories from others and get inspired from them.

For international students it's really helpful because like I said like sometimes you are in a silo, you feel like you are coming out of your country where here you don't really have your you know community so AERA has definitely helped you to you know connect with your communities. Going to socials really helped to you know connect on a personal level and as international students like I said if we stay connected we can get so much out of each other that we really want to collaborate with each other as well as also find our research interests through AERA itself.

Christi Bergin
University of Missouri | Member since 1983

I've been a member of AERA for decades. I can't tell you exactly how long, at least three, I would say. And I always learn something from other researchers when we come.

One of the best things about being at AERA is that we learn from one another and we ask hard questions of one another. So we have to think a little bit more deeply about our work and how we might translate it into something that's actually meaningful and helpful in classrooms.

Chandler Patton Miranda
Molloy University | Member since 2014

AERA approved an Immigration and Education Special Interest Group that just started this year. And for many years I've been coming to AERA and I've presented in multiple divisions and SIGs and always felt a little bit unmoored. And at our first business meeting yesterday, I felt like I had an academic home and community for the first time.

And so it's such an important space for immigration scholars to be able to find mentorship and community and an academic home. So I'm excited that AERA has established this place for us and I'm excited to see how it grows over the next many years. For anyone who's an immigration and education scholar who does work on refugee or migrant students, students who are seeking asylum in this country or their families and communities, that you have a space at AERA now and that we hope that they will join us.

Devin Henry
University of Wisconsin - Madison | Member since 2023

AERA has been extremely helpful. I've met UW-Madison alumni, I've met North Carolina A&T alumni, I've met educators from everywhere around the world and I think that just talking about it is very exciting and it overwhelms me with joy just having a space that we can all come together and just learn and be a nerd and socialize in a way that is only unique to AERA every single time. I think it's the culture and the people that has their own unique flair to them every year and it's always important to see how people have changed and how people have developed their research interests and their studies as well over time.

I would love to be a chair on some presentations, I would love to present in the future as well at AERA. I'm looking forward to that definitely but I'm also looking forward to just connecting and also continuing to see what AERA has next up their sleeve. I think every year is something new to expect and I mean I think that's part of the charm of it all.

Ashley Davis
Coppin State University | Undergraduate Student

Being an undergrad, being around nothing but graduates and researchers and people that I actually cite in my papers is like completely mind-molding. I've learned so many different things in so many different aspects. Seeing so many different nationalities speak about the same issues, it just goes to show everybody has a community thought about what needs to be done, especially in special education and inclusion.

Inclusion is a big deal and the fact that people from different places all over the world are here to speak on it, it just makes my heart warm, it makes me feel like I'm in the right place. Seeing people like myself and seeing people with other nationalities just goes to show like we care, we're not just teaching, we're teaching for a reason and it means a lot when you actually have the genuosity and the full heart to do it. You're not just there for the check, you're there to actually change people's lives and I feel like the research that we've heard over these last couple of days goes to show that if you're not truly into it, you're not going to be good for our students and the research that I'm hearing, we're here for the students so yeah, it's just been an awesome experience.

ML Brown
Pennsylvania State University | Member since 2025

AERA has been amazing. What I've learned is just the power of collaboration. As a graduate student, sometimes we seem to feel alone when we go through certain spaces.

We have faculty support, but sometimes on a peer-to-peer level, it's just not there. Coming here, I've been able to meet so many people that can help me with my research, whose research I can help with, and I've been able to connect with people that I haven't been able to meet in person. So I definitely feel rejuvenated, and I'm ready to just hit the ground running.

I'm really a big fan of these roundtables because it allows you to collaborate with peers and get feedback that you might not get from other people. It allows people who are not so familiar with your work, or you as a person, to come in with an unbias to let you know how your work is going. I think that I was able to get a lot of good skills and feedback from that, so I definitely plan on implementing that in my work in the future.

I became a member last fall, so it started off with a great foot. I'm definitely interested in going back. I already started planning how to go to Toronto.

I advise anyone who is in the education system to come to AERA.

Aakash Chowkase
Yale University | Member since 2019

So I've been a member of AERA since 2019, and I was desperate to meet this influential scholar in my field, who was a part of our network. And in 2022, after COVID, when we met again in San Diego, I said, would you mind putting in a word for me at your university at this so-and-so department? And I said, yes. And that's how I landed my postdoc, which basically gave me a nice landing platform to move from my initial field into something totally new related to emotions and social psychology.

So I moved from educational psychology to social psychology. Thanks to this connection, I made at a social reception at AERA. And that's what I would encourage all graduate students out there to, you know, yes, present your work, but also make connections at AERA.

And there is no other better place than AERA to make new connections, especially with established scholars in the field. Most of the postdoctoral positions are not ever advertised, only about 14, 17 percent are advertised. So other positions come open only through those networks.

And that's why networking at AERA is so impactful. It changed my life, gave me a new path, and I'm extremely happy.

Iyanu Olalowo
Kent State University | Member since 2023

A significant part of AERA is bringing you a step closer to a community of like-minded learners. Individuals who are readily on ground to push you to thinking further. I'll take for instance, when you just think that this is the direction of what your line of inquiry could be.

AERA has become such haven of resourceful forwardness, where you come and you are able to see what else is unseen or how what is being seen can be seen in another way. So yeah, in a large way I would say community and especially not just scholarly community but in a holistic manner. I think I've had a lot of collaborations that had come as a result of my membership in AERA.

I've had the opportunity in working with great minds. I've also had the opportunity of being in close proximity with some of the names you would always want to consult with your works in your scholarship. So AERA becomes that platform where you are not just a step closer to them, you are able to see into what they are thinking from what you have known about their thought process.

I think AERA is just a good place to be. Yeah, it can be so large a community but it's also small enough to find your connection.

Melody Isabela
Claremont Graduate University | Member since 2023

So this is why I really wanted to appreciate that AERA gives us a space, a time to share our voice, and then also knowing that this kind of work is not done in isolation. Although at times, you know, scholars often feel like we're doing work in our little room and based on our computers. But with here, I was privileged enough to hear all these scholars and their work and what they're trying to do.

It's really inspired me and focused on the most updated research that currently benefited AAPI populations. And then as I am a middle school teacher, I was able to bring this scholarly research and then take it to a practitioner perspective.

Quinci Teer
Cleveland State University | Member since 2026

I come to AERA to be a community with people, to hear about the other research that overlaps with mine and to build those networks so that we can have cross-state collaboration. AERA has given me the platform to be able to speak about my research but also to receive feedback and to hear the critical questioning that is needed to create something that I can deliver back. And so it has also been an opportunity to establish community support to think and look for a grassroots organizing that's happening that we can draw lessons from to help in Ohio but also we can offer something to those that are not in Ohio that we have learned from our own experiences.

Anastasia Roddy
Coppin State University | Undergraduate Student

I'm learning so much, especially with meeting and hearing the research that we're talking about every day in our learnings. People that we cite every day in our research, in our projects, and in our books that we have to, that really makes me who I am. So like meeting Ladson-Billings, like the authors of the Black Gaze Theory, they really make me who I am to be a culturally relevant teacher, to really understand the different perspectives of students that I teach.

So being here, meeting them, meeting other people from different nationalities, different parts of the world, who all come together as a community to have the shared experience and the greater good for our students, and really solidify that I'm here for a reason, I'm here for a purpose, and it keeps me motivated to keep going. In the future, I'm going to be an educator for sure, and I want to deepen my research. I want to do research.

I want to discuss the topics that we're discussing now, but I'm also not on what's going wrong in the education community, but what's going right? What are we doing as a community? How are we coming together as teachers, researchers, educators, students, to make a change, and what's going right, so we can keep going and push it forward to that. I feel like that's one thing that I learned in this experience, is that we always talk about what's going wrong. We overshadow what's going right, and I saw so many presentations on what we're doing that is right, solidify that. We're going to keep going.

We're going to be the change, and I know in 20 years, I'm going to be part of the change.

Mona Holmqvist
Lund University | Member since 2003

You can always find the particular research you are engaging in right now and see how other people are dealing with that. So we are not just doing the same things all over again, but we learn from each other. I'm coming here all the way from Sweden to meet researchers in my field and see how other people from other countries and other parts of the world deal with the problems.

I have also joined a SIG, a Lesson Study SIG, and I have been involved in the World Association of Lesson Studies, so that is also a very important context for me. The value of AERA to the research field is that we who do research, we can come together and present our research in a very smooth way.

It's a very big conference, so sometimes it's a little bit difficult to find the sessions you are interested in, but you always find the people that are in the front line of research and that's very important.

Gaurav Harshe
University of South Carolina | Member since 2025

My first AERA was actually my first year of my PhD program, and I actually presented three papers that time. It was through a SIG actually, and one of my professors who was not in my program, not in my university, we connected through a little bit of like a topical area in SIG, and so she literally mentored me to get through the proposal in, and thankfully the proposal was accepted, and so I was able to come here through that. So I've ever been since, like been in the SIG, but also been in Division J, which is Postsecondary Education, and so kind of between the SIG and the Division, I’ve found my home right now.

It's really been helpful in the sense that I can understand what the SIG is doing, and I can have those niche kind of conversations that don't necessarily happen in my Division, and it's really been helpful in the personal sense also, that people are talking critically, people are talking about topics that I'd love to talk about that I don't see in other conferences as much, and so I find my SIG space really helpful that way. So a graduate student representative for Division J right now, and I'm finishing out my two-year term at this moment, and so I'm really excited that I was able to afford this opportunity to serve in that two-year role, but then whatever we are really doing for grad students and community building and things like that.