February 2022

AERA has announced 15 recipients of its Dissertation and Research Grant Awards. Their research encompasses relevant and innovative topics in education research that addresses or ultimately informs STEM, education policy, and equity and inclusion in education. The grant recipients are selected from a highly competitive applicant pool and through a rigorous proposal review process. These awards are supported by the longstanding AERA-NSF Grants Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Proposals were received in October 2021 and reviewed by the program’s Governing Board in November.

• Meet the new awardees below

These scholars are examining education research questions and issues using large-scale federal data sets or federally funded data sets such as from the American Community Survey (ACS), Common Core of Data (CCD), Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), Private School Universe Survey (PSU), and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Many awardees analyze Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) such as the SLDS data from Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia in their research. These studies use rigorous quantitative methods and advanced statistical techniques to analyze these data.

The grants provide advanced graduate students with $27,500 for one year as they write up their dissertation research; early career scholars receive up to $35,000 for a maximum two-year study. In addition, scholars participate in professional development and training activities aimed at building their research capacity and encouraging the use of large-scale data in education research.

“For over three decades, the AERA-NSF Grants Program has continuously supported new studies in STEM education and education policy that use the latest research methods and data innovations” said Barbara Schneider (Michigan State University), chair of the program’s Governing Board. “These newly funded scholars are poised to develop salient research using large-scale data.”

Since 1990, the AERA-NSF Grants Program has supported over 600 graduate students and early career scholars as they launched their careers and developed their research agendas in STEM education research.

Current and former AERA-NSF Grants Program grantees will present their research in poster sessions during the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting in San Diego. For more information about the Grants Program, visit the AERA website. The next proposal deadline for Dissertation and Research Grant Awards will be Wednesday, June 15, 2022.

AERA Grants Dissertation Awardees
Recipient		Project Title
	Sean Darling-Hammond UC Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy	Effects of Exposure to Restorative Practices
	Kaylee Matheny   Stanford University	Does Equalizing School Funding Lead to More Equal Outcomes?
	Hadiza Mohammed The University of Texas at Austin	Texas High School Graduation Requirements: Tracking the Endorsements
	Tara Nicola Harvard University	Writing the Right Thing: Do Counselor Recommendation Letters Support Equity in the Selective College Admission Process?
	Katherine Parham Teachers College, Columbia University	Whose IDEA Is This? A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Federal Emphasis on Inclusive Education
	Ye Shen University of Delaware	Intrinsic Functional Connectivity: What Is the Relation Between a Heritage Language and the Neurobiological Correlates of Emergent English Reading?
	Tucker Smith Vanderbilt University	Can Environmental Policy Reduce the Black-White Achievement Gap? The Achievement and Sorting Effects of New Air Quality Standards
	Daniel Sparks  Teachers College, Columbia University	To Give or To Take: Effects of Reductions in Pell Lifetime Eligibility on Community College Transfer Student Success in STEM
	Carrie Townley Flores           Stanford University	Early Childhood Opportunity, PreK to Grade 3

AERA Grants Research Awardees
Recipient		Project Title
	Monnica Chan University of Massachusetts-Boston	Social Benefits and College Affordability: Exploring the Role of SNAP Benefits in College Student Success
	Xiaodan Hu Northern Illinois University	A Head Start to College: Does Dual Enrollment Equalize Students' Academic and Labor Market Success in STEM?
	Hyeon-Ah Kang University of Texas at Austin	A Multivariate Latent Markov Model for Understanding Students' Interaction Patterns in Low-Stakes Computerized Assessments: An Application to PISA
	Paul Polanco University of Texas at Austin	Latinx & Bilingualism: Understanding the Relation Between Bilingualism and Academic and Career Success
	Youmi Suk     University of Virginia	A Within-Group Approach to Random Forests for Evaluating Educational Programs in Multilevel Studies
	Sara Witmer     Michigan State University	Exploring the Role of Meaningful Accessibility Tool Use for Addressing Math Test Score Validity Concerns