This year, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) is hosting its annual meeting in a hybrid format in Philadelphia, PA, featuring presentations from faculty, graduate students and alums from the Michigan State University College of Education, and other Spartans showcasing their research. The AERA Annual Meeting is the largest global gathering of education researchers, showcasing innovative studies in diverse fields.
The theme of this year’s conference is, “Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action.”
Faculty and academic staff recognition
Three faculty were named AERA Fellows, which recognizes exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research.
Professor Patricia Edwards, Dean Jerlando F. L. Jackson and Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia were honored with the distinction.
Edwards has dedicated her career to promoting practical, sustainable and inclusive reading and literacy instruction strategies for children. She has earned over $100 million in grant-funded projects, published 12 books (and counting) and developed two national literacy programs. Read more about Edwards' career.
Since assuming leadership in 2022, Jackson has continued the college’s legacy of leadership, scholarship and service. He has also continued his research as the director and chief research scientist for the Organizational Disparities Laboratory. In addition to the AERA Fellow honor, Jackson is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021) and a Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society member. Read more about Jackson's career.
Linnenbrink-Garcia explores the development of achievement motivation in school settings, focusing on the interplay between motivation, emotions, engagement and learning, particularly in science and engineering domains. In 2023, Educational Psychology Review listed her as the #2 top-producing woman scholar in her field. She is also a fellow of American Psychological Association and serves as co-editor of Educational Psychologist – the top theoretical journal in the field. Read more about Linnenbrink-Garcia's career.
Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Jungmin Kwon is a recipient of the Language and Social Processes Special Interest Group (SIG) Early Career Award. Her research specializes in language and literacy studies, the experiences of immigrant children and families, transnational migration and preparing teachers for classrooms filled with students from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. She is the author of “Understanding the Transnational Lives and Literacies of Immigrant Children” (Teachers College Press, 2022), which was recognized by the 2022 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award.
Also in 2022, she received the Early Career Award from the AERA’s Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education SIG. Her research has been featured in several scholarly publications, including the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Bilingual Research Journal, Language and Education, Language Arts, among others.
Department of Teacher Education Assistant Professor Noreen Naseem Rodríguez received AERA Division K 2024 Innovations in Research on Equity and Social Justice in Teaching and Teacher Education Award. The award honors research showcasing innovation in tackling equity and social justice issues within teaching or teacher education.
Her research engages critical race frameworks to explore the pedagogical practices of teachers of color and the teaching of so-called difficult histories through children’s literature and primary sources. In 2023, she co-wrote “Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms” with scholars Sohyun An and Ester June Kim, who also received the award.
In 2022, she was awarded the Outstanding Paper Award, from AERA’s Social Studies Research SIG. Before becoming a teacher educator, she was a bilingual elementary teacher in Austin, Texas for nine years.
Kylie Gorney, an assistant professor of Measurement and Quantitative Methods in the college’s Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education, was named an Outstanding Reviewer for her role in reviewing academic journal entries to the American Educational Research Journal. Gorney’s primary research interests include test security, item response theory and computerized adaptive testing. Her work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Applied Psychological Measurement, British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, and Journal of Educational Measurement.
“For me, the most rewarding part of being a reviewer is knowing that the work that I do helps uphold the quality and integrity of published research,” said Gorney, who reviewed four articles in 2023.
Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Justin Gutzwa was elected program chair-elect for the Queer Studies SIG of AERA.
Drawing on their identity as a queer, nonbinary, trans scholar, Gutzwa leverages critical theories and qualitative approaches to challenge deficit-based perceptions of queer and trans populations in higher education, especially among trans Communities of Color. Their work critically examines the systemic marginalization faced by these communities in postsecondary STEM educational environments. Before embarking on an academic career, Gutzwa gained diverse experience in student affairs, working in areas such as undergraduate admissions and services for international students.
John Lane, an outreach specialist with the college’s Office of K-12 Outreach, was named an Outstanding Reviewer for his role in reviewing academic journal entries to the American Educational Research Journal. Lane — a 2015 graduate of the college’s Educational Policy Ph.D. program — is a qualitative researcher who focuses on the social contexts of educational policy implementation. Prior to his time at the college, Lane worked as a teacher, curriculum specialist and a school administrator.
“Reviewing helps me make a contribution to scholarship. I appreciate being included in the important work of knowledge creation in my field through providing others’ feedback about their work,” said Lane when asked what the most rewarding part about his role as a reviewer has been. “I enjoy reading the latest in educational research and learning about how researchers are answering important questions. Third, reviewing helps me think more critically about my own work and how I might improve it.”
Alumni Awards
Below are just a few of our alumni who have recently received prestigious awards. There are undoubtedly many more achieving great things:
Taeyeon Kim, a 2020 graduate of the college’s K-12 Educational Administration doctoral program, received the Emerging Scholar Award from the AERA’s Educational Change SIG.
As an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s College of Education and Human Sciences, her research explores the relationship between leadership and policy, particularly focusing on ways leaders can challenge unjust systems and implement practices that humanize and empower marginalized students and communities.
Kim’s paper, “The Human Side of Accountability: Dilemmas of Reaching All Learners,” published in the Harvard Educational Review, by AERA was noted when they announced her award.
Jon Wargo, a 2016 graduate of the college’s Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education (CITE) Ph.D. program received an honorable mention for the Early Career Award from Division K. As a researcher in literacy and a teacher educator at the Marsal Family School of Education (University of Michigan), Wargo examines the impact of media and technology in connection with the development of critical literacy in minoritized children and nondominant youth. He utilizes the innovative and creative abilities of young people as indicators and sources for meaningful literacy education.
In 2023, he received the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Media Literacy Award. He was also named Early Literacy Teacher Educator of the Year. During his time at the college, Wargo was inspired by his former Professors Django Paris, Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, Avner Segall, Peter De Costa, Trixie Smith, Susan Florio-Ruane and Cheryl Rosaen. “I had a phenomenal time with them as my professors and I just feel so grateful that I was at the college during a very special time,” he said. “One thing that MSU taught me is that the teacher education classroom is, and will forever be, a ripe site for inquiry.”
Gregory Cizek, a three-time alum of the college, is a recipient of the E. F. Lindquist Award. The award, presented jointly by AERA and ACT, honors exceptional applied or theoretical research within the realm of testing and measurement. It is designed to recognize a comprehensive body of work that is empirical, theoretical, or integrative in nature, as opposed to a singular study.
Cizek’s academic career has spanned more than 25 years in the field of applied assessment with specializations in standard setting, validity and test security. He has served as President of the National Council on Measurement in Education and has previously served a partial term on the Governing Board. He serves as professor of Educational Measurement and Evaluation at the UNC School of Education.
Join us in the celebration: Include your 2024 AERA achievement in this compilation! Get in touch with coemedia@msu.edu for further information.