Visiting Faculty Scholars of Color
Since 2008, select scholars of color are invited to Penn GSE to give lectures and share their research with faculty and students as part of our Visiting Faculty Scholars of Color series. The series also provides an opportunity for doctoral student socialization and learning. These talks are followed up with a lunch and conversation between students and the speaker about their work.
2019-2020 lecture series:
Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, Associate Professor of Education, Harvard University
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Stiteler Hall, Silverstein Forum, 2:30 – 3:45pm
Bridwell-Mitchell's research builds on her three areas of training and study: organizational management and theory, public policy, and education. Specifically, her research and teaching integrate these three fields to examine how organizational factors constrain and enable the success of U.S. public school reform.
Sally Nuamah, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Location: TBD, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Sally A. Nuamah’s research sits at the intersections of race, gender, education policy, and political behavior. Her first book, How Girls Achieve, was released by Harvard University Press in April 2019. She was named Forbes Magazine 2019 “30 under 30” in Education and awarded the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
2018-2019 lecture series:
Brian Burt, Assistant Professor, Iowa State University
Dr. Burt’s program of research uses qualitative methodological approaches to study the experiences of graduate students, and the institutional policies and practices that influence students’ educational and workforce pathways. His current research projects fall in two strands: 1) exploring the experiences of underrepresented graduate students of color in engineering; and, 2) understanding the science of team science.
Cynthia Dillard, Mary Frances Early Professor of Teacher Education, University of Georgia
Dr. Dillard’s major research interests include critical multicultural education, spirituality in teaching and learning, epistemological concerns in research and African/African-American feminist studies. Her research has focused in Ghana, West Africa, where she established a preschool and an elementary school. Two of her books, On Spiritual Strivings: Transforming an African American Woman’s Academic Life (SUNY Press, 2006) and Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget: Endarkened Feminisms, Spirituality, and the Sacred Nature of Research (Peter Lang, 2012) have been selected as Critics’ Choice Book Award winners by the American Educational Studies Association (AESA).
Xueli Wang, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Xueli Wang studies college students’ learning, pathways, and success, with a particular focus on community colleges and STEM education. Dr. Wang utilizes a variety of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches in her research. Her scholarship appears in numerous academic journals. She was honored with the 2015 Barbara K. Townsend Emerging Scholar Award by the Council for the Study of Community Colleges.
Micere Keels, Associate Professor, University of Chicago
Dr. Keels' principal research interests concern issues of race-ethnicity, inequality, poverty, and the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods. Dr Keels is the principal investigator for EdTalk Project, where she translates her work into layperson’s terms to make it more accessible to the public. She has examined how educational disparity trickles down to future generations and is further examining the role the education gap plays for minority students.