NEPC Topic Experts on Diversity – Race, Ethnicity, Class, Culture, and/or Gender

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He also holds Distinguished Professor appointments at the University of Manchester and Northeast Normal University in China.  A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, unions, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice.

Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform, on the relationship between culture and power, and on education for social justice.  Among his recent books are: The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education; The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education; Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education; and most recently Knowledge, Power, and Education; and Can Education Change Society?  His books and articles have won numerous awards and have been translated into many languages.

Professor Apple has been selected as one of the fifty most important educational scholars in the 20th Century.  His books Ideology and Curriculum and Official Knowledge were also selected as two of the most significant books on education in the 20th Century.

He has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Educational Research Association, the UCLA Medal for "Outstanding Academic Achievement," and a number of honorary doctorates by universities throughout the world.

Email Michael W. Apple at: apple@education.wisc.edu

Alfredo J. Artiles is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University. His scholarship examines the dual nature of disability as an object of protection and a tool of stratification. He aims to understand how responses to disability intersections with race, social class, gender and language advance or hinder educational opportunities for disparate groups of students.

Dr. Artiles received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Göteborgs (Sweden) and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). He is the Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) and Director of the Research Institute at Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity. Dr. Artiles is the editor of the book series Disability, Culture, & Equity published (Teachers College Press). He has served on three consensus panels of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and was a Commissioner on the Obama White House Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Artiles has received mentoring awards from The Spencer Foundation, AERA, and Arizona State University. Dr. Artiles is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and Fellow of AERA and the Learning Policy Institute.

Email Alfredo Artiles at: aartiles@stanford.edu

Elena Aydarova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Aydarova was a faculty member at Auburn University for six years prior to joining UW. Her interdisciplinary scholarship lies at the intersections of comparative and international education, educational policy, and anthropology. She examines educational policies and their implications for equity, diversity, and social justice through the lens of theater. Rooted in critical theories, her research focuses on intermediary organizations’ advocacy and the ensuing technocratic reforms. She also explores educators’ policy advocacy as they work towards more equitable and just education for all. She is a recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship, American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, the Concha Delgado Gaitan Presidential Fellowship from the Council of Anthropology and Education, a Global Teacher Education Fellowship from the Longview Foundation, as well as a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship. She has authored over 30 publications, including the award-winning book Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater: Russian Policy Dramas (2019, with SUNY Press).

Email Elena Aydarova at: aydarova@wisc.edu

Leonard Baca is professor emeritus of education and former director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education (www.colorado.edu/education/BUENO) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Baca is a member of several professional organizations including the National Association of Bilingual Education, Teachers of English as a Second Language, the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Association for Multicultural Education and the American Educational Research Association. He served on the editorial boards of several journals including the Bilingual Research Journal, Multicultural Perspectives, and Remedial and Special Education.

Email Leonard Baca at: leonard.baca@colorado.edu

Derek Black is one of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy.  He focuses on educational equality, school funding, the constitutional right to education, segregation, and the federal role in schools. He has published over thirty scholarly articles in the nation’s top legal journals, including the flagship journals at Yale, Stanford, New York University, California-Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern and Vanderbilt. That work has been cited several times in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It has also drawn him into litigation disputes over school funding and federal policy, where he has served as an expert witness and consultant.

He is currently a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina, where he holds the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law and directs the Constitutional Law Center. He began his career in teaching at Howard University School of Law, where he founded and directed the Education Rights Center. Prior to teaching, he litigated education cases at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.   

Email Derek Black at: blackdw@law.sc.edu

Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy (Lumbee) is the dean of Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. Previously he was President’s Professor in the School of Social Transformation at ASU and Vice President of Social Advancement. He also serves as senior advisor to the president, director of the Center for Indian Education, and co-editor of the Journal of American Indian Education. He also has affiliations with the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, American Indian Studies, and the Department of English. From 2007-2012, he was Visiting President’s Professor of Indigenous Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In the last 15 years, he and his team have created programs in Alaska, Arizona, and Utah that have prepared over 125 Indigenous teachers, most of whom are still teaching in Indian Country. His research focuses on the experiences of Indigenous students, staff, and faculty in institutions of higher education, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Indigenous Research Methodologies.

Email Bryan Brayboy at: Bryan.Brayboy@Northwestern.edu

Kevin Brown, Richard S. Melvin Professor, has been on the faculty of Indiana University Maurer School of Law since 1987. Professor Brown is a 1978 graduate from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business where he majored in Accounting. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1982. After Law School, he worked for four and half years at the Indiana law firm of Baker & Daniels (since merged into Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP). He teaches Race & Law, Torts, Law & Education, Sports Law, Criminal Law and Transnational Comparative Inequality. Brown has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, and University of San Diego School of Law. He has been affiliated with universities on four different continents including the School of Transnational Law of Peking University in Shenzhen, in Shenzhen, China; the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India; the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, India; the Law Faculty of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa; the Law Faculty of the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa; Adilet Law School in Almaty, Kazakhstan; and the University of Central America in Managua, Nicaragua. Brown also spent the Spring Semester of 2014 teaching in London Law School Consortium Program.

Email Kevin D. Brown at: brownkd@indiana.edu

Kristen Buras spent two decades as an education professor at Emory University then Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her work continues as an antiracist scholar-activist in the Deep South. She is cofounder and director of the New Orleans-based Urban South Grassroots Research Collective, a coalition with Black educational and cultural groups that melds community-based research and organizing for racial justice. Buras has written multiple books on urban educational policy, including Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance and What We Stand to Lose: Black Teachers, the Culture They Created, and the Closure of a New Orleans High School. She is coauthor of Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance and coeditor of The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles with Michael Apple. She is regularly contacted by school board members, teachers, parent groups, education activists, and journalists across the nation for her expertise on school district takeovers, privatization, and the effects on local communities. She has published in Harvard Educational Review, Peabody Journal of Education, Race Ethnicity and Education, and elsewhere, spoken by invitation at universities such as Columbia, Dillard, Fordham, Loyola, Harvard, and Tulane, and participated in community forums in cities affected by neoliberal reforms. Buras was granted the Distinguished Scholar-Activist Award by Critical Educators for Social Justice of the American Educational Research Association.

Website: www.kristenburas.com

Email Kristen Buras at: kburas@gsu.edu or kb.usgrc@gmail.com

photo: © Alexandra Zak Photography 

Prudence L. Carter is Sarah and Joseph Jr. Dowling Professor of Sociology at Brown University. Prior to coming to Brown, she was the E.H. and Mary E. Pardee Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Berkeley. Professor Carter’s research focuses on explanations of enduring inequalities in education and society and their potential solutions. Specifically, she examines academic and mobility disparities shaped by the effects of race, ethnicity, class, and gender in the United States and global society. 

Carter’s award-winning book, Keepin’ It Real: School Success beyond Black and White (2005), debates various cultural explanations used to explain school achievement and racial identity for low-income Black and Latino youth in the United States. Her other books include Stubborn Roots: Race, Culture, and Inequality in U.S. & South African Schools and Closing the Opportunity Gap: What American Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance (co-edited with Dr. Kevin Welner).

A Brown alumna (’91), Professor Carter received a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics and economics. She earned a Master of Art in Sociology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University.  

Email Prudence L. Carter at: prudence_carter@brown.edu

Mitchell J. Chang is Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles and also holds a joint appointment in the Asian American Studies Department. Chang's research focuses on the educational efficacy of diversity-related initiatives on college campuses and how to apply those best practices toward advancing student learning and democratizing institutions.  In 2006, he was profiled as one of the nation's top ten emerging scholars by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education (formerly Black Issues in Higher Education).

Email Mitch J. Chang at: mjchang@gseis.ucla.edu

E-mail Antonia Darder at antonia.darder@lmu.edu

Jaime L. Del Razo is an Assistant Professor of Education at Vassar College. He is interested in researching and writing about issues that confront the continual and accepted forms of oppression that marginalized communities endure in overt and subtle forms in the United States with the goal of changing these conditions forever. Though this research agenda intersects a variety of topics, his current lines of inquiry include (1) Access & Equity for Undocumented Students; (2) Race & Racism; (3) Class & Classism; and (4) Militarization of Schools & Veteran Students. Jaime holds a PhD in Education from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.

Email Jaime Del Razo at: jdelrazo@vassar.edu

Adrienne Dixson is Department Head of Education Policy Studies at the Penn State College of Education. Previously she was executive director of the Education and Civil Rights Initiative (ECRI), and a professor of educational leadership studies at the University of Kentucky. Her primary research interest focuses on educational equity in urban schooling contexts, applying a Critical Race Theory framework. She is interested in how educational equity is mediated by school reform policies in the urban south and is examining school reform in post-Katrina New Orleans, how local actors make sense of and experience those reform policies and how those policies become or are "racialized."

Email Adrienne Dixson at: add5746@psu.edu

Elizabeth Dutro is professor and chair of Literacy Studies in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in the area of literacy studies. Her research investigates the intersections of literacy, identity, and children and youth’s opportunities for positive, sustained, relationships with schooling. A primary strand of her work analyzes the presence and consequences of out-of-school life experiences and discourses of race, class, gender in students’ encounters with literacy curriculum, instruction, and high-stakes accountability policy. Elizabeth was a recipient of the Promising Researcher Award and Alan C. Purves Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Email Elizabeth Dutro at: Elizabeth.Dutro@colorado.edu

Margaret Eisenhart is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds the Bob and Judy Charles Endowed Chair of Education. Her research focuses on the application of anthropological concepts and methods to educational settings. In particular, Dr. Eisenhart has studied culture, gender relations, and women’s experiences in education, as well as women in science and technology. During the past five years, she has been directing outreach programs and research studies related to opportunities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among high school students. She is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the American Educational Research Association. In 2004 she was elected to the National Academy of Education and currently serves on the Academy’s Board of Directors.

Email Margaret Eisenhart at: margaret.eisenhart@colorado.edu

Kathy Escamilla is a Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Escamilla's research centers on educational issues related to Spanish-speaking language minority students in U.S. schools. She is specifically interested in issues related to the development of bilingualism and biliteracy in early elementary grades for this Spanish speaking population. Dr. Escamilla has served two terms as the president of the National Association for Bilingual Education. She is a co-editor of the Bilingual Research Journal, and has served as the chair of the Bilingual SIG for the American Education Research Association.

Email Kathy Escamilla at: kathy.escamilla@colorado.edu

Amy Farley is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies program within the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses broadly on equity in P-20 education systems and how consequential K-12 and postsecondary policies impact educational opportunity. She pays particular attention to school and university reform; high-stakes policies, including those regarding data use, measurement, and assessment; and the disparate impact of policies on minoritized student and teacher populations. Before becoming a faculty member, Amy worked as a K-12 educator and a Strategic Data Fellow through Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research, where she worked closely with state and local agencies to conduct research and provide technical assistance regarding the implementation of education policies and reforms related to standards, educator evaluation, and student assessment.

Email Amy Farley at: farleyay@ucmail.uc.edu

Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr. heads a management, education, and litigation consultant group.  He earned a B.A. degree from North Carolina Central University, a Masters and Ph.D from Michigan State University, and a post-doctoral Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He most recently served as Professor of Community Management & Policy Practice in the School of Social Work, Associate Director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Kenan Institute in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, and as a Fellow in the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He was previously Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Policy & Community Studies in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an adjunct professor in the Departments of Curriculum & Instruction, Urban Studies, and Allied Health.

Dr. Farrell has served as a consultant to NEA, AFT, and their state and local affiliates.

Dr. Farrell has published numerous essays and articles on K-12 education, the agenda to privatize public schools, diversity, social and immigration issues, and death penalty mitigation.  He has appeared on National Public Radio (NPR)—The Connection and the Today Show (with Matt Lauer) to discuss public education (vouchers, charters, and school privatization).  He currently writes a weekly column, “Defending Public Education,” for Black Commentator, an online Journal. 

Email Walter C. Farrell, Jr. at: wcfpr@bellsouth.net

Edward García Fierros (he, him, el), is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Villanova University. Fierros is Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Education and Counseling at Villanova. Fierros, a first-generation college graduate completed his doctoral degree in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. His expertise includes testing and measurement, diversity and equity in assessment, multiple intelligences theory, and educational policy related to underrepresented students. Fierros has written numerous journal articles and co-authored Multiple Intelligences: Best Ideas from Research and Practice (2004; with Kornhaber and Veenema). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Email Edward García Fierros at: edward.fierros@villanova.edu

Kara Finnigan is a professor of education at the University of Michigan's School of Education. Previously, she spent 19 years at the University of Rochester, most recently as Professor of Education Policy and Leadership and as a Distinguished Equity, Inclusion, and Social Transformation Fellow. She has conducted research and evaluations of K-12 educational policies and programs at the local, state, and federal level for more than 25 years. She has written extensively about low-performing schools and high-stakes accountability, district reform, principal leadership, and school choice. Finnigan has published two edited books and her co-authored book Striving in Common: A Regional Equity Framework for Urban Schools was published last year by Harvard Education Press. Her research blends perspectives in education, sociology, and political science; employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, including social network analysis and GIS mapping; and focuses on urban school districts. Her recent research focuses on diffusion of research evidence through school systems, connections between housing and education policy to reduce segregation, and equity networks that focus on system change. Finnigan serves on the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative’s Policy Committee and was recently invited to testify at a hearing of the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Email Kara Finnigan at: ksfinn@umich.edu

Gustavo E. Fischman is professor in educational policy and director of edXchangethe knowledge mobilization initiative at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. His areas of specialization are comparative education and critical policy and gender studies in education. He is currently leading two research projects. The first analyzes knowledge mobilization strategies of graduate schools of education. Specifically, this project explores the processes of knowledge-exchanges between academic centers and relevant stakeholders such as other scholars, educators, administrators, policymakers, and the general public. The second project focuses on understanding and strengthening the quality, impact and reach of open access publishing in scholarly communication in Latin America.

Dr. Fischman has published extensively and presented in numerous national and international conferences, and has been a visiting scholar in numerous graduate programs in Europe and Latin America. In 2013 has been elected fellow of the International Academy of Education. He serves in numerous editorial boards, and is also the lead editor of Education Policy Analysis Archives and co-editor of Education Review/Reseñas Educativas,

Email Gustavo Fischman at: Fischman@asu.edu

References to selected publications:

Fischman, G. E. & Diaz, V. D. (2013) Education without Redemption: Ten Reflections about the Relevance of the Freirean Legacy, Interamerican Journal of Education for Democracy 4 (2) pp. 70-87.

Fischman, G. E. (2013) ‘Hacerlo bien’: Acceso, visibilidad e impacto de la investigación latinoamericana. Cuadernos del Pensamiento Crítico Latinoamericano, CLACSO, no. 6, oct 2013

Fischman, G. E. & Haas, E. (2012) Beyond “idealized” citizenship education: Embodied cognition, metaphors and democracy. Review of Research in Education (RRE), Volume 36: Education, Democracy and the Public Good,pp 190-217.

Alperin, J., Fischman, G. E., & Willinsky, J. (2012). Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America’s Research-Intensive Universities. IESALC-Educación Superior y Sociedavol 16(2). http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/index.php/ess/article/view/409

Erica Frankenberg is an associate professor of education and demography at the Pennsylvania State University, and co-director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights. Her research interests focus on racial desegregation and inequality in K-12 schools, including how school choice policies affect students’ stratification and equal opportunity.

Email Erica Frankenberg at: euf10@psu.edu

Patricia Gándara is a Research Professor at the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. Her professional interests in graduate teaching include education policy/education reform, social context of learning, learning and assessment, and educational equity/bilingual and multicultural education. She is currently the co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles. She was President of the Sociology of Education Association in 1995 and Chair of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute in 1995. She has also been Chair of the Program Committee for Division G and Chair of the Hispanic SIG of the American Educational Research Association.

Email Patricia Gándara at: pcgandara@gmail.com

Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles

Dr. Mileidis Gort is Associate Dean of Students and Professor of Bilingual Education and Biliteracy at CU Boulder. She brings an interdisciplinary orientation to her research and teaching. Her primary research efforts focus on emergent bilingualism and biliteracy in early childhood, and to bring that knowledge to pre K-12 teacher education and practice in order to create culturally- and linguistically-responsive learning contexts for emergent bilingual learners. Her scholarship converges at two interrelated lines of research: (a) the language and literacy processes of young, Spanish-English emergent bilingual children, and (b) instructional practices and educational policies that support the dual language, biliteracy, and academic development of emergent bilingual children.

Email Mileidis Gort at: mileidis.gort@colorado.edu

Preston Green is the John and Carla Klein Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. He is also a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut.

Before coming to the University of Connecticut, he was the Harry Lawrence Batschelet II Chair Professor of Educational Administration at Penn State, where he was also a professor of education and law and the program coordinator of Penn State's educational leadership program. In addition, Dr. Green was the creator of Penn State's joint degree program in law and education. Further, he ran the Law and Education Institute at Penn State, a professional development program that teaches, administrators, and attorneys about educational law.

Dr. Green has written four books and numerous articles and book chapters pertaining to educational law. He primarily focuses on the legal and policy issues pertaining to educational access and school choice. He holds an Ed.D. in Educational Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law.

Email Preston Green at: preston.green@uconn.edu

Kris D. Gutiérrez is Professor of Language, Literacy and Culture. She was most recently a professor of Learning Sciences/Literacy and the Inaugural Provost’s Chair, University of Colorado, Boulder and Professor Emerita of Social Research Methodology at GSE&IS at UCLA. Professor Gutiérrez is a national leader in education, with an emphasis in literacy, learning sciences, and interpretive and design-based approaches to inquiry. Gutiérrez is a member of the National Academy of Education and is the Past President of the American Educational Research Association and the National Conference on Research on Language and Literacy. Gutiérrez was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the National Board for the Institute of Education Sciences where she served as Vice Chair.

Her research examines learning in designed learning environments, with attention to students from non-dominant communities and English Learners. Her work on Third Spaces examines the affordances of hybrid and syncretic approaches to literacy, new media literacies, and STEM learning and the re-mediation of functional systems of learning. Her work in social design experiments seeks to leverage students’ everyday concepts and practices to ratchet up expansive forms of learning. Professor Gutiérrez's research has been published widely in premier academic journals and is a co-author of Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory.

Gutiérrez has received numerous awards for her empirical work, including the 2014, Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education Research – Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2014 Henry T. Trueba Award for Research Leading to the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education, (Division G, AERA), the 2005 AERA Division C Sylvia Scribner Award for influencing the field of learning and instruction. She was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, an AERA and NEPC Fellow, and an Osher Fellow, Exploratorium Museum of Science. Gutierrez received the AERA Hispanic Research in Elementary, Secondary, or Postsecondary Education Award and the Inaugural Award for Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education, Division K (AERA). She served on the U.S. Department of Education Reading First Advisory Committee and a member of President Obama’s Education Policy Transition Team. Professor Gutiérrez was also identified as one of the 2009 Top 100 influential Hispanics.

Email Kris Gutiérrez at: gutierrkd@berkeley.edu

Dr. Shaun R. Harper is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education and Marshall School of Business, the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center. He is author of over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and other academic publications. Review of Research in Education, Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, and Journal of College Student Development are some journals that have published his research. Professor Harper’s research has been cited in more than 8,000 published studies. His books include Advancing Black Male Student Success from Preschool through Ph.D. and Scandals in College Sports. Johns Hopkins University Press is publishing his 13th book, Race Matters in College.

Email Shaun Harper at: sharper@usc.edu

Dr. Jennifer Jellison Holme is an Associate Professor of Educational Policy and Planning at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the politics and implementation of educational policy, with a particular focus on the relationship between school reform, equity, and diversity in schools. Her specific areas of research include school desegregation policy, high stakes testing, and school choice policy. She earned her B.A. in Sociology from UCLA, her Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her Ph.D. in Urban Schooling from UCLA.

Email Jennifer Holme at: jholme@austin.utexas.edu

Robert Kim is the Executive Director of Education Law Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving public education and fostering equitable educational opportunity for students in the United States. His expertise includes most facets of education law and policy related to pre-K-12 and postsecondary education in the United States, civil rights litigation and advocacy, and constitutional law.

Email Robert Kim at: robertkimnyc@gmail.com

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro (https://www.kevinkumashiro.com) is the founding chair of the national network, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE).  He is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate.  Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the Schools of Education at the University of San Francisco and Hofstra University, and is the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice, and most recently, Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. His recent awards include the 2016 Social Justice in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Michal Kurlaender is Professor of Education Policy at the University of California, Davis.  Her research focuses on students’ educational pathways, in particular K-12 and postsecondary alignment, and access to and success in college. Kurlaender works closely with all of California’s public K-12 and higher education sectors. She has recently launched an IES-funded partnership with the California Department of Education to explore college and career readiness in the era of Common Core. She also serves as a co-director of PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education), and is affiliated with the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research, Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research, and the Centers for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness and Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment (both at Teachers College). She received her EdD from Harvard University in 2005. Her work has been published in various academic and policy outlets.

Email Michal Kurlaender at: mkurlaender@ucdavis.edu

Gloria Ladson-Billings (PhD Stanford ’84) is the president of the National Academy of Education. She is Professor Emerita and the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association. Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She also investigates Critical Race Theory applications to education.

Ladson-Billings is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, Crossing over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and Beyond the Big House: African American Educators on Teacher Education. She is editor of five other books and author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters. She is the former editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a member of several editorial boards. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards, including the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, Spencer Post-doctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson outstanding research award. In spring 2005 she was elected to the National Academy of Education and the National Society for the Study of Education. In 2007 she was awarded the Hilldale Award, the highest faculty honor given to a professor at the University of Wisconsin for outstanding research, teaching, and service. She is the recipient of the 2008 Distinguished Service Award from Teachers College, Columbia University. Ladson-Billings holds honorary degrees from Umeå University (Umeå Sweden), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain), the Erickson Institute (Chicago), and Morgan State University (Baltimore).  She is a 2018 recipient of the AERA Distinguished Research Award, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018.

Email Gloria Ladson-Billings at: gjladson@gmail.com

Margaret D. LeCompte is Professor Emerita of Education and Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Internationally recognized for her development of qualitative and ethnographic research methods in education, her empirical research has focused on diversity (race, ethnicity, class, culture and language), and on issues of social justice and equity. Published articles include studies of school reform and school organization in low-income and at-risk communities, and of ethnically diverse, gifted, artistically creative, and language minority students, including Native Americans. She won the University Press of America award for Outstanding Research Article in 1994 and the American Educational Studies Association award for Outstanding Book in 1986. An elected Fellow of AERA. the Society for Applied Anthropology, and the American Anthropological Association, LeCompte was awarded the Council on Anthropology and Education’s George and Louise Spindler Award for lifetime contributions to the field of educational anthropology in 2011. Dr. LeCompte was president of the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropology Association from 1983-1985, and served as member of its Executive Board from 2010 to 2016.  She was editor of the American Educational Research Association’s flagship journal, Review of Educational Research, from 2003-2006. Her most recent publications include research on language policy and the politicization and corporatization of higher education, and as well, with Jean Schensul, the second edition of the seven-volume series, The Ethnographer’s Toolkit, (2010-2016).

Email Margaret D. LeCompte at: margaret.lecompte@colorado.edu

Jaekyung Lee, PhD, is a professor and former dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. A fellow of the prestigious American Educational Research Association (AERA), Lee is an internationally recognized leader in educational policy, accountability and equity, and international and comparative education. He has a PhD in education from the University of Chicago. Lee is currently a Richard P. Nathan Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute of Government. He was also a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and a fellow of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the recipient of 2007 AERA Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award and 2015 Western New York Educational Service Council Robert W. Heller Award. Lee is the author of "The Anatomy of Achievement Gaps: Why and How American Education is Losing (But Can Still Win) the War on Underachievement" (Oxford University Press).

Email Jaekyung Lee at: jl224@buffalo.edu

Bethy Leonardi, PhD is codirector of A Queer Endeavor (aqueerendeavor.org) and an associate professor of Educational Foundations, Policy, & Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. In her research she focuses on the complex relationship between policy and practice, and specifically, policies that rub up against the status quo. 

Email Bethy Leonardi at: Bethy.Leonardi@colorado.edu

Francesca López, PhD is the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy at Penn State University, College of Education, Curriculum and Instruction Department. Her research focuses on the ways educational settings promote achievement for marginalized youth.  It has been funded by the American Educational Research Association Grants Program, the Division 15 American Psychological Association Early Career Award, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Email Francesca López at: falopez@psu.edu

Ruth M. López, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice at The University of Arizona College of Education. She earned B.A.s in Mexican American Studies and Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin, and PhD in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was previously a Senior Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. Prior to earning her PhD, she was a college outreach counselor in Houston through the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at UT-Austin, and a program coordinator of the Colorado Diversity Initiative at CU-Boulder. Dr. López’s research addresses the social and political contexts that students of color navigate across K-12 schools. Her work examines 1) the intersections of education and immigration policies, 2) college access for Latinx and undocumented students, 3) the experiences of Latinas at Hispanic Serving Institutions. Dr. López’s commitment to educational equity and college access is informed by her multiple identities as the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico, first-generation college student/graduate, and mother scholar.

Email Ruth López at: ruthlopez@arizona.edu

Daniel J. Losen, J.D., M.Ed., is Director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA's Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles. He has worked at the CRP since 1999, when it was affiliated with Harvard Law School, where he has also been a lecturer on law. His work concerns the impact of federal, state and local education law and policy on students of color. On these and related topics he: conducts law and policy research; publishes books, reports, and articles; has testified before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations; helps draft model legislation; and provides guidance to policymakers, educators and civil rights advocates. His most recent efforts have focused on addressing the school to prison pipeline.  in January 2012, CCRR’s national conference called Closing the School Discipline Gap: Research to Practice, featured new research on remedies from leading scholars from across the nation. In 2014 Losen will be working with Teachers’College Press to publish a book based on this new research. As the Director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, he has recently published several (co-authored) research and policy studies including:  Out of School and Off Track: The Overuse of Suspensions in American Middle and High Schools, (April, 2013) with Tia Martinez and Eliminating Excessive and Unfair Exclusionary Discipline in Schools Policy Recommendations for Reducing Disparities (March 2014) with Damon Hewitt and Ivory Toldson, on behalf of the Disparities in Discipline Research Collaborative.  As an independent consultant Losen also has extensive experience working with states and large districts across the nation. Before attending law school, Losen taught public school for 10 years and was a founding member of a public alternative school.

Find data on disparities in discipline and links to CCRR's new research at this webtool developed by CCRR: www.schooldisciplinedata.org.

Email Daniel J. Losen at: losendan@gmail.com                     

Jeff MacSwan is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the University of Maryland. He is also Professor of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science and affiliate Professor in the Department of Linguistics. His research program focuses on the linguistic study of codeswitching, translanguaging theory, on the role of language in the education of multilingual students, and education policy. His work has appeared in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Lingua, the Bilingual Research Journal, World Englishes, and Language Teaching Research, among others. He served on the Committee on Fostering the Development and Educational Success of Dual Language Learners of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. MacSwan is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the 2021 recipient of the AERA Bilingual Education Research SIG Lifetime Achievement Award and the Second Language Research SIG Leadership through Research Award. MacSwan previously taught linguistically diverse middle and high school students in Los Angeles public schools.

Email Jeff MacSwan at: macswan@umd.edu

Patricia Marin is an associate professor in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) program in the College of Education at Michigan State University. She studies higher education policy, leadership, and institutional culture with a focus on issues of equity, inclusion, and diversity. In particular, her research foci include the changing nature of Hispanic Serving Institutions, diversity in college classrooms, and research use in policy and practice. Before joining the MSU faculty she served as Associate Director of the University of California Educational Evaluation Center. She also worked for The Civil Rights Project (CRP) at Harvard University and the American Council on Education in Washington, DC.

Email Patricia Marin at: pmarin@msu.edu