For Immediate Release July 9, 2021 Contact: Tony Pals, tpals@aera.net (202) 238-3235
AERA Announces New Editor Team for AERA Open
Washington, July 9, 2021—The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has announced the appointment of Kara S. Finnigan (University of Rochester), Terah Venzant Chambers (Michigan State University), Stella M. Flores (University of Texas at Austin), Michal Kurlaender (University of California, Davis), Elizabeth Birr Moje (University of Michigan), Michele S. Moses (University of Colorado Boulder), and Cecilia Rios-Aguilar (University of California, Los Angeles) as the new editor team of AERA Open for 2022–24. Finnigan will serve as editor-in-chief and her colleagues as co-editors. This team will succeed the inaugural team led by editor-in-chief Mark Warschauer (University of California, Irvine).
AERA Open was launched in 2014 as one of the first open access journals published by social and behavioral science associations. It was named the “Best New Journal in Social Sciences” by the Association of American Publishers in 2019. Since 2014, the journal has received over 3,000 submissions with over 400 published.
“I am thrilled with the appointment of such an outstanding team of prominent scholars,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Under their leadership, the journal will build on the success of the inaugural team as they advance AERA Open’s tradition of rapid peer review, open access, and broad dissemination of research to a worldwide audience.”
The team was appointed by 2020–21 AERA President Shaun Harper. This appointment culminated an extensive search driven by the AERA Journal Publications Committee, which is charged with making editorial recommendations to the president. As editors, Finnigan and her colleagues will begin receiving new manuscripts on October 1, 2021.
AERA Open aims to advance knowledge related to education and learning through rigorous empirical and theoretical study, conducted in a wide range of academic disciplines. The journal publishes studies of education and learning in various contexts, such as early childhood, after-school, primary and secondary, and postsecondary education.
Kara S. Finnigan is professor of education policy at the University of Rochester’s (UR) Warner School of Education, a faculty fellow with UR’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, and co-chair of UR’s Community Engagement for Racial Justice and Faculty Senate Research Policy Committees. She has conducted research and evaluations of K–12 educational policies and programs at the local, state, and federal levels. Her research blends perspectives in education, sociology, and political science; employs qualitative and quantitative methods, including social network analysis and GIS mapping; and focuses on urban school districts. She has published two edited books and co-authored Striving in Common: A Regional Equity Framework for Urban Schools.
Terah Venzant Chambers is a professor of K–12 educational administration and the associate dean for equity and inclusion at Michigan State University. Her research interests include post-Brown K–12 education policy and urban education leadership. Specifically, she is interested in the ways within-school segregative policies influence African American students’ academic achievement and school engagement, as well as the price of school success for high-achieving students of color (racial opportunity cost).
Stella M. Flores is associate professor of higher education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also serves as director of research and strategy at the Education Research Center at UT Austin (as of fall 2021). Her research employs quantitative methods to explore the effects of state and federal policies on college success outcomes for low-income and underrepresented populations. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, and the Educational Testing Service.
Michal Kurlaender, professor and department chair at the University of California, Davis, has expertise on alternative pathways to college, and college access and success at community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. Kurlaender works closely with national data and administrative data from all three of California’s public higher education sectors. She also studies the impact of racial and ethnic diversity on student outcomes, including mandatory and voluntary K–12 school desegregation efforts, persistent inequalities in segregated schools, and diversity in postsecondary settings.
Elizabeth Birr Moje is dean, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. Her research examines young people’s navigations of culture, identity, and literacy learning in and out of school. Her current project is the founding and leadership of the Detroit P-20 Partnership, a collective impact strategy aimed at supporting community-engaged development through enhanced education opportunity. Moje is a Fellow of AERA and was elected to the National Academy of Education.
Michele S. Moses is professor of educational foundations, policy, and practice and vice provost for faculty affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a philosopher specializing in education policy studies, with expertise in ethics, democracy, and education’s role in promoting the public good. Moses is an AERA fellow and has published three books: Embracing Race: Why We Need Race-Conscious Education Policy; Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students around the World (with Laura Jenkins); and Living with Moral Disagreement: The Enduring Controversy about Affirmative Action.
Cecilia Rios-Aguilar is professor of education and associate dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion at the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She also serves as a faculty co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education, as a board member of the Spencer Foundation, and as a research affiliate of Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research at the University of California, Davis. Her research is multidisciplinary and uses a variety of asset-based conceptual frameworks and statistical approaches to study the educational and occupational trajectories of marginalized students.
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About AERA The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.