Several scholars affiliated with the MSU College of Education are expanding their research through grants from the Spencer Research Foundation.
Community-based work in Guatemala
Assistant Professor Alexandra (Alex) Allweiss received a $50,000 Spencer Research Foundation Small Grant on Education. Allweiss, who is the project’s principal investigator, will work collaboratively with members of Ajpop Wajxaklajunh, a Maya Chuj-led community organization. Prior to the Spencer Foundation grant, the project’s beginnings were co-designed with 12 members of the Ajpop Wajxaklajunh through a College of Education Research Enhancement Grant, an internal funding competition. The same group will work with Allweiss on the Spencer-funded project, which launches in June 2026.
Together, they will “explore and engage with digital technologies and develop archival and curricular materials that preserve Chuj knowledges, language and histories and offer resources for disrupting historical and ongoing transnational processes of Indigenous erasure in education.”
Allweiss is a core faculty member with the MSU Center for Gender in Global Context and with the MSU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She has worked with the Maya Chuj nation for nearly two decades. Recent peer-reviewed research papers that center her work with the Chuj nation include a 2025 The Modern Language Journal publication with alum Romina Peña-Pincheira, Ph.D. ‘22 (Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education) and a 2025 article in Compare.
Malawi-focused work with multiple MSU collaborators
Assistant Professor Alyssa Morley is a co-principal investigator on a $372,900 Spencer Research Foundation Large-Grant on Education. The effort, “Reconfigurations and Refusals: Forging Futures Beyond Aid in Malawi,” broadly assesses how the country’s education sector is transforming after losing significant funding following the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025.
The research will explore the multi-layered and deeply felt “consequences of aid cuts to education” and “imagine new possibilities for resourcing and partnership.”
Morley’s research background includes prior work in Malawi, including a 2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship that explored the “everyday creativity of primary school teachers in Malawi.” She earned the prestigious national support prior to receiving her Ph.D. in Education Policy from the college in 2019. More recently, Morley’s Malawi-based research efforts include a peer-reviewed paper with project principal investigator Rachel Silver (York University). Published by the American Educational Research Association’s AERA Open journal in December 2025, the paper contributes an initial analysis of the “educational impacts of USAID’s dismantling.”
Since 2021, Morley has served as coordinator of the MSU Global Educators Cohort Program, which supports pre-service teachers in developing global perspectives for their teaching.
For a temporary period, Morley was the Outcome 2 lead for the MSU’s Transforming Higher Education Systems (THES) project in Malawi, a $17 million USAID-funded initiative. The project closed in 2025 when USAID was dismantled.
The new study in Malawi, which officially begins in July 2026, also includes fellow collaborators:
- Steve Sharra, Ph.D. ‘07 (Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education), who currently serves as the director of Academic Affairs at Malawi School of Government.
- Nelson Nkhoma, who succeeded Morley as the THES Outcome 2 lead. Nkhoma is currently a learning specialist at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
- Stella Makhuva, who collaborated with Silver and Morley as a research associate on a study of girls’ schooling experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic (Spencer Foundation, Small Grant, 2021-23). Makhuva is currently a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The project is accelerated by Strategic Partnership Grants (SPG) from the Center for Gender in Global Context and the African Studies Center at MSU. In May 2026, the team will use SPG funding to convene in Malawi and finalize project logistics prior to the launch of the Spencer project in July 2026. Jennifer Marcy, the director of the Nonprofit Leadership, Global Cultures and Social Enterprise programs in the College of Arts & Letters will serve as outside advisor to the group.