Hats off to Penn GSE students

The end of the spring term is the perfect time to celebrate the many students who make a difference here at Penn GSE and in their work beyond the School. Join us as we recognize the accomplishments of our Penn GSE students through commencement awards, distinguished research opportunities, awards for excellence, and more.

Here are some highlights, in alphabetical order, as the school year comes to a close:

Cameron Anglum, Moorman-Simon doctoral fellow in the Education Policy division, received an AEFP New Scholar Award. This Association for Education Finance and Policy program supports promising research that addresses education finance and policy. Anglum also received a Graduate Fellowship for Teaching Excellence from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Teaching and Learning. This award honors graduate students who are dedicated to excellent teaching and is designed to foster conversations to help graduate students develop as teachers. In addition, he was selected for the David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar, a seminar that brings emerging educational administration and policy scholars and noted researchers together for generative discussion and professional growth.

Aisha Bowen is receiving the Laurie Wagman Award for Visual and Performing Arts in Education. This award recognizes a Penn GSE scholar (faculty, student, or staff) 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.  

Sofía Chaparro Rodarts is the 2018 recipient of the Jolley Bruce Christman and Steven S. Goldberg Annual Award for Best Dissertation in Urban Education. The award recognizes research with a strong commitment to issues of social justice in education. Her dissertation is entitled, “Language and the gentrifying city: An ethnographic study of a two-way immersion program in an urban public school.”

Syeda Farwa Fatima, a Ph.D. candidate in Quantitative Methods, was invited to present at the annual meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Mexico City in March 2018. Her presentation was entitled, “Measuring socioemotional well-being of students through self reports: A critique on the validity of indicators in PISA 2015.”

Uyen Ha is the recipient of this year’s GSE Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity & Inclusion. This honor is presented to an outstanding Penn GSE student who has exhibited an unparalleled commitment to one of our core values – creating an inclusive community.

Nneka Ibekwe, a doctoral candidate in the Human Development and Quantitative Methods division, was selected as a Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Pre-doctoral State Policy Fellow in Early Learning. SRCD supports scholars with placements in state executive branch offices working on state Pre-K programs. With Dr. Sharon Wolf as her academic mentor, Ibekwe will be partnering with the Office of Early Learning at the Department of Education in Delaware. Ibekwe was one of only four fellows selected to be a SRCD Pre-doctoral State Policy Fellow in Early Learning.

Selene Lee, a Ph.D. candidate in Quantitative Methods, was selected for a competitive summer internship at Educational Testing Service (ETS). During the internship, Lee will research how to improve the item fit statistics and the socioeconomic status (SES) scale of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Lee has extensive experience analyzing PISA data, and she presented her findings at a paper session at AERA this year.

Angus McLeod, a first-year Ph.D. student in the Education, Culture, and Society program, was accepted into the Education Policy Academy in Washington, DC. Offered by the American Enterprise Institute, the academy gives students an opportunity to explore current education debates with a group of leading scholars.

Lloyd Talley is being presented with the William E. Arnold Award for Outstanding Contributions by a Student. The Arnold Award reflects Penn GSE’s commitment to preparing outstanding educators and academic leaders. 

Thanks to all staff and faculty members who notified us of these awards. If we have missed any awards, our apologies! Please email gse-comm@gse.upenn.edu to notify us of a new or missed award, and we will be happy to add it to this page.