Visiting Scholars Speaker Series: Diverse Perspectives in Education
Since 2008, select scholars from diverse backgrounds and perspectives are invited to Penn GSE to give lectures and share their research with faculty and students as part of our Visiting Scholars Speaker Series: Diverse Perspectives in Education. 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.
2024-2025 lecture series:
Dr. Jane Lo, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education, Michigan State University
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 355, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Lo studies social studies education broadly, with a specific focus on the inequitable experiences of students in civic education. She will share her research and focus as it relates to the themes of this year’s One Book, One GSE program, which centers on Lara Schwartz’s book, Try to Love the Questions.
Dr. Ashley Cureton, Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 355, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Cureton identifies as a refugee and forced migration scholar who seeks to identify culturally specific interventions, programs, and policies to improve the educational, socio-emotional, and environmental outcomes of refugee youth and their families in the U.S and abroad. She will share her research and focus as it relates to the themes of this year’s One Book, One GSE program, which centers on Lara Schwartz’s book, Try to Love the Questions.
Dr. Tolani Britton, Associate Professor at the Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 355, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Britton uses quasi-experimental methods to explore the impact of policies on students’ transition from secondary school to higher education, as well as access and retention in higher education. She will share her research and focus as it relates to the themes of this year’s One Book, One GSE program, which centers on Lara Schwartz’s book, Try to Love the Questions.
Dr. Ashley R. Moore, Assistant Professor of Language Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Settings, University of Toronto Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 355, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Moore’s research and public engagement pursues the realization of queer- and trans-inclusive language education. He will share his research and focus as it relates to the themes of this year’s One Book, One GSE program, which centers on Lara Schwartz’s book, Try to Love the Questions.
Past Years
2023-2024 lecture series:
Dr. Dana Miller Cotto, Assistant Professor, Kent State University
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut St, 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Cotto’s research aims to understand the role of context and early life experiences in children’s early development, particularly regarding school readiness.
Dr. Anjali Adukia, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut St, 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Adukia’s research is focused on understanding factors that motivate and shape behavior, preferences, attitudes, and educational decision-making, with a focus on early-life influences. She seeks to understand how to reduce inequalities so that children from historically disadvantaged backgrounds have equal opportunities to fully develop their potential.
Dr. Roland Sintos Coloma, Professor of Teacher Education, Wayne State University
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut St, 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Coloma’s research examines the cultural politics of difference in education with a focus on race, class, gender, and sexuality from historical, intersectional, and transnational frameworks.
Dr. Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Associate Professor, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut St, 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Figueroa’s ethnographic research seeks to understand the ways in which the lives of children and adults in mixed-status families are shaped by citizenship status and schooling practices during every day, routine interactions. Her book, Knowing Silence: How Children Talk about Immigration Status in School, is a longitudinal ethnographic account of the lives of six Latina girls growing up in mixed-status immigrant families in New York City.
2022-2023 lecture series:
Dr. Christopher Candelaria, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Location: Penn GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 200, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Professor Candelaria uses economic theory and econometrics to evaluate policies and better understand issues in education policy.
Dr. Chandra Alston, Assistant Professor in the College of Education at NC State University
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Location: 3420 Walnut Street, Van-Pelt Dietrich Library, Class of 78’Pavillion 6th Floor, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Alston has worked for over a decade preparing beginning, middle, and high school English teachers, and studying the implications of educational policy reforms on literacy instruction.
Dr. Joshua Childs, Assistant Professor in the Educational Policy and Planning program in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
One Penn GSE, 3440 Market Street, Room 501, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Childs’ research examines the role of interorganizational networks and cross-sector collaborations to address complex educational issues.
Dr. Gabrielle Oliveira, Jorge Paulo Lemann Associate Professor of Education and of Brazil Studies at Harvard University
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Location: One Penn GSE, 3440 Market Street, Room 501, Philadelphia PA 19104 12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Oliveira’s research focuses on immigration and mobility — on how people move, adapt, and parent across borders. Her expertise includes gender, anthropology, and transnationalism across the Americas.
2020-2021 lecture series:
Sally Nuamah, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Location: Zoom, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Dr. 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 2019. She was named Forbes Magazine 2019 “30 under 30” in Education, and awarded the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack, Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Location: Zoom, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Dr. Jack’s research documents the overlooked diversity among lower-income undergraduates: the Doubly Disadvantaged—those who enter college from local, typically distressed public high schools—and Privileged Poor—those who do so from boarding, day, and preparatory high schools. For Zoom information, email Lizzie Petela.
Dr. Dominique Baker, Assistant Professor, Southern Methodist University
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Location: Zoom, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Dr. Baker’s research focuses on the way that education policy affects and shapes the access and success of underrepresented students in higher education. Recent and ongoing projects examine student financial aid, affirmative action and admissions policies, and policies that influence the ability to create an inclusive & equitable campus climate. For Zoom information, email Lizzie Petela.
Dr. Dorinda Carter Andrews, Professor, Michigan State University
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Location: Zoom, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Dr. Carter Andrews’ research is broadly focused on racial justice and educational equity. She examines issues of racial justice in P-12 learning contexts and on college campuses, urban teacher preparation and identity development, and critical race praxis with K-12 educators. Her scholarship illuminates voices of youth and adults who have been historically and traditionally marginalized in schools and society. For Zoom information, email Lizzie Petela.
Dr. Monique Morris, Author, Social Justice Scholar, Filmmaker
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Location: Zoom, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
Dr. Morris, Ed.D. is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and social justice. She is the author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016), which explores how exclusionary discipline impacts Black girls in the United States. She is also an executive producer and co-writer for a documentary film, PUSHOUT. For Zoom information, email Lizzie Petela.
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.
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.