A time for celebrations and appreciation

As we congratulate the Class of 2021, Penn GSE wants to recognize the extraordinary service and impressive accomplishments of our students, faculty, and staff who help make Penn GSE the exceptional community that it is. Please join us in celebrating these highlights as we wrap up our academic year. 

Penn GSE Annual Awards

The William E. Arnold Award for Outstanding Contributions by a Student

The Arnold Award reflects our commitment to preparing outstanding educators and academic leaders. 

Awardee: Haisheng Yang

Penn GSE Student Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity & Inclusion

This award honors students who embody and strive to promote one of our core values – an inclusive community.

Awardees: Rosybell Maria, Leland McGee, and Jennifer Phuong

Laurie Wagman Award for Visual and Performing Arts in Education

This award recognizes a Penn GSE scholar who demonstrates an innovative and creative education vision and intends to share that vision with their peers and/or students whether through academic research, writing, and/or classroom activities.

Awardee: Jasmine Blanks-Jones

Staff Recognition of Service Award

This award recognizes staff who have shown extraordinary work above and beyond their job description to assist students, other staff, or faculty.

Awardees: Janeen Chavis, Joyce Cook, Jessica Lundeen, Taryn Ortlip, and Frank Wenger

Faculty Recognition of Service Award

This award goes to faculty who have gone above and beyond to assist, support, and/or mentor students during this academic year.

Awardees: Yumi Matsumoto, Rand Quinn, Sharon Ravitch, Amy Stornaiuolo, and Krystal Strong

More Student Awards & Honors 

Irteza Binte-Farid, joint degree student with Education, Culture, and Society and Anthropology, was selected for the Annenberg/York University three-year Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Archiving the Inner City Research Project. This year, Binte-Farid's research has been supported by a Wenner Gren Fellowship and a University of Pennsylvania Urban Studies Program Dissertation Fellowship.  

Jasmine Blanks-Jones received one of two inaugural three-year postdoctoral fellowships in the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship (RIC) in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at John Hopkins University. Fellows were selected on the basis of innovative research and civic commitments in accord with RIC’s values to advance reparative higher education and research-driven racial justice.

Tsai-Hsuan (Angel) Chung and Janay Mae Garrett were awarded a Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students. The prize recognizes the profound impact of graduate students on education at Penn. Nominations come directly from undergraduate and graduate students. Ten prizes are awarded annually. 

Meghan Comstock, lead author, along with co-authors Professor Jon Supovitz and Maya Kaul received the 2021 Best Paper Award for the AERA Organizational Theory SIG, for their manuscript: “Exchange Quality in Teacher Leadership Ties: Examining Relational Quality Using Social Network and Leader-Member Exchange Theories."

Rebecca Davis, Ph.D. student in Education Policy, and Assistant Professor A. Brooks Bowden were awarded the Outstanding Policy Report by AERA Division L for their work in North Carolina on school meals. Their work influenced policy across the state in the elimination of the fee to students for reduced price lunches.

Kim Fernandes, a joint degree student with Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development and Anthropology, received a Center for the Advanced Study of India Summer Research award. She also received a Social Science Research Council Mellon International Research Fellowship which is funding her dissertation research in Delhi, India until November 2021. In January, Fernandes was awarded the Marion Jemmott Fellowship by the Taraknath Das Foundation, also to support her dissertation research, and was named the best student in this year's competition. 

Janay Mae Garrett, a Ph.D. candidate in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development program and Karla Venegas, a doctoral student in the Educational Linguistics program, were both welcomed into the 2021 AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program, a fellowship program that prepares Latina/o/x doctoral scholars for successful careers in academia.

Dr. Nora Gross, a May 2020 graduate with a joint degree in Education, Culture, and Society and Sociology, was named the 2021 recipient of the Jolley Bruce Christman and Steven S. Goldberg Annual Award for Best Dissertation in Urban Education in the Graduate School of Education. 

Christiana Kallon Kelly, Ph.D. candidate in Education, Culture, and Society, ranked top 4 out of 17 presenters and received an honorable mention at the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools (NAGS) 3 Minute Thesis competition in April. In addition, Kellon Kelly was selected as a Woman and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) non-residential fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government for the 2021-2022 academic year. Kallon Kelly is exploring how the 2018 Free Quality School Education Program and education technologies in Sierra Leone are shaping the well-being of adolescent girls and gender relations in schools and communities they serve.

Bethany Monea, a Ph.D. student in the Reading, Writing, and Literacy program, was awarded a grant from AERA Division D for innovative methodologies for her dissertation. The purpose of the grant initiative is to support doctoral students and early career scholars whose research is focused on methodological issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion caused by our current Covid-19 pandemic.  

Atenea Rosado-Viurques, a joint degree student with Education, Culture, and Society and Anthropology, was a CAMRA Mentors Fellow this spring. 

Rachael Stephens, a joint degree student with Education, Culture, and Society and Anthropology, was selected to be a University of Pennsylvania Presidential Ph.D. Fellow. Stephens was funded this spring by a CAMRA Mentor's Fellowship.  

Jessica Peng, a joint degree student with Education, Culture, and Society and Anthropology, received a Wenner Gren Fellowship. 

Claire Wan was awarded a Provosts Graduate Academic Engagement Fellowship. This fellowship is awarded to outstanding students whose scholarship significantly involves academically-based community service. 

More Faculty Awards & Honors

Bob Boruch, Professor of Education and Statistics, received the 2020 Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award from the Division of Experimental Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. This award recognizes lifetime achievement in the field of experimental criminology. 

A. Brooks Bowden, Assistant Professor in the Education Policy division, received an Outstanding Reviewer Award from the AERA journal Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Karen Detlefsen, Professor of Philosophy in the School of Arts & Sciences, with a secondary appointment at Penn GSE was named Penn vice provost for education, and will oversee undergraduate and graduate education at Penn, developing and implementing policies that promote academic excellence, innovative teaching and learning, and interdisciplinary knowledge across the University. 

Krystal Strong, Assistant Professor in the Literacy, Culture, and International Education division, was selected to be featured in a mural honoring Black women activists. The mural, Crown: Freedom, by artist Russell Craig, and a second mural by Craig entitled Crown: Medusa, were dedicated on May 11 in a livestreamed Facebook event. A project of Mural Arts Philadelphia, the murals are installed at the Municipal Services Building across from City Hall. They expand on the installation featuring the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020.