Penn GSE faculty and students share expertise at AERA 2025 in Denver

Dr. Manuel González Canché leads a pre-conference workshop on machine-driven text classification and analysis on April 22.

From pioneering discussions on AI and digital literacies to advancing educational access, youth well-being, curriculum innovation, and justice-centered research methodologies, Penn GSE faculty, students, and alumni played an active role at the 2025 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, held April 23–27 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. With approximately 14,000 participants in attendance, the conference served as a premier platform for advancing some of the year’s most pressing educational research and practice discussions.

This year, Penn GSE faculty were invited to lead and participate in multiple high-profile invited speaker sessions, reflecting their leadership and scholarship across fields such as AI in education, racial justice, global research methodologies, and school finance reform.

Among the highlights:

• Abby Reisman served as a panelist for Co-Constructing the Future of Division C: Aligning Structure With Contemporary Scholarship, leading a critical conversation on modernizing educational research structures to better support emerging and interdisciplinary fields like AI, data science, and culturally responsive pedagogy.
• Sarah Schneider Kavanagh and Tess Bernhard presented at AI and Educational Justice: A Critical Conversation, a presidential session questioning the assumed benefits of AI for education and challenging its implications for marginalized communities.
• Amalia Daché chaired Global Innovations in Research Methodologies, highlighting cutting-edge approaches such as quantitative ethnography, Indigenous methodologies, and machine learning to advance resilience and justice-centered educational research worldwide.
• Ericka Weathers participated in Race, Racism, and Resources, a session focused on reimagining school finance policies to promote equitable education renewal across K–12 systems.
• Vivian Gadsden served as a discussant for Are the Kids Alright? Lingering Effects of COVID-19 on Youth Well-Being, Learning, and Educational Engagement, exploring pandemic-era impacts on young learners.

In addition to these distinguished sessions, dozens of Penn GSE students presented their work at AERA, including poster sessions, paper presentations, roundtable discussions, and workshops. Many of these projects originated from course-based research and reflected the school’s emphasis on bridging theory and practice.

“This was my first time presenting my papers at AERA. It was an amazing experience turning my course projects from Dr. Damani White-Lewis and Dr. Linda M. Pheng’s classes into papers to be presented here. Truly an amazing and learning opportunity,” said Youning Zhao, a master's student in the Higher Education program.

“Networking with leading scholars was the most exciting part of my AERA experience,” said Qiao (Sherry) Lin, a master’s student in the Higher Education and Learning Sciences and Technologies programs. “I explored new research on AI in education and even connected with the researcher who developed the questionnaire I used for my thesis—an inspiring moment that opened new opportunities for collaboration.”

Participating Penn GSE faculty also included:

Dorene Balmer, Sade Bonilla, Ed Brockenbrough, Wendy Chan, Maria Cioe-Peña, Nelson Flores, Vivian L. Gadsden, Manuel González Canché, Pam Grossman, Tyler Hook, Charlotte Jacobs, Maya Kaul, Megan MacDonald, Dayna Muñiz, Laura Perna, Linda Pheng, Amy Stornaiuolo, Jessica Whitelaw, and Damani White-Lewis.

Penn GSE is proud to celebrate the achievements of all its faculty, students, and staff who contributed to AERA 2025, advancing critical conversations and scholarship across the field of education.