June 2026
AERA has announced the recipients of the 2026-2027 Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research and Travel Awards. This highly competitive program provides funding to members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in education research and offers mentorship and professional guidance as fellows complete their doctoral studies. A central goal of the program is to strengthen and diversify the pipeline of faculty, scholars, and researchers across the education research field.
The 10 new awardees are conducting research on a wide range of important topics, including early childhood education, racial disparities in school discipline, dual language education, and student experiences across schooling levels. Their projects employ qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches and draw on diverse data sources, including longitudinal administrative datasets, qualitative interviews, and state archival records. Many of these scholars are grounded in critical policy, equity, or socio-cultural perspectives.
2026-27 Minority Dissertation Fellows and Travel Awardees
Name
Institution
Dissertation Title
Anna Acha
University of California – Riverside
Gatekeeping Access: Blackness and Racial Cognizance in Higher Education
Andre S. Anderson-Thompson
University of California - Davis
Black Boy Innocence: A Portrait of the Public Waldorf School Model within Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD)
Aukeem Ballard
University of California - Berkeley
Toward Illuminating Possibilities: Examining Love & Learning Among Black Youth in Schools
Daniel Garcia*
University of California - Irvine
Co-Designing, Implementing, and Refining a Family Empowerment Model With and For Latine Families
Andrea Kim
Teachers College, Columbia University
SecuritizED: Carceral Schooling as a Racial Knowledge Project
Angie Kim*
University of Michigan
In Good Company: A Critical Relational Ethnography of Advancing Racial Equity in Historically White Institutions
Gabriela López*
Stanford University
Toward Racial Repair: Understanding the Production of Racial Harm in Early Elementary Discipline
Aida L. Pacheco-Applegate
University of Chicago
Adapting to Policy Changes: Private Early Care and Education (ECE) Providers’ Responses to Chicago’s Public Preschool Expansion and Illinois’ Smart Start Workforce Grants
Gariel Pierce
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Understanding Corporal Punishment in the American South: An Examination of History and the School-Prison Nexus Policies
Nora Turriago*
University of California – San Diego
Leadership for Multilingual Learner Equity: A Case Study of Policy Implementation and Sensemaking in Massachusetts
*Minority Dissertation Travel Awardees
Dissertation fellows receive a $25,000 stipend to support the completion of their dissertation research and training. Travel award recipients receive funding to attend the 2027 AERA Annual Meeting in Toronto. All awardees will present their work in the invited poster session, “Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research,” where they will engage with the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Selection Committee and other senior scholars through mentoring and career development activities.
Recent fellows have advanced their research agendas through publications in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and have received additional prestigious fellowships and awards. Many have gone on to faculty or postdoctoral positions at institutions such as Rutgers University, Washington & Lee University, and the University of Maryland.
AERA Council established the Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program in Education Research in 1991 to support outstanding graduate students as they develop their research and launch their careers. The association remains committed to providing capacity-building, mentoring, and professional development opportunities for scholars from racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in education research.
“The dissertation fellows are conducting research that will contribute important new knowledge and deepen our understanding of teaching, learning, and educational experiences across different contexts.” said George L. Wimberly, AERA Director of Professional Development and Diversity Officer. “AERA is proud to support these emerging students as they undertake pivotal work in education research.”
AERA’s Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program supports research on education, schools, schooling processes, and student experiences. The selection committee seeks proposals that bring grounded, insightful, and informed perspectives to the field.
AERA will begin accepting applications for the next cycle this fall. For more information about the program, contact fellowships@aera.net.