Teachers College had a strong presence at the American Educational Research Association’s recent annual meeting, “Research, Remedy and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal,” a timely reminder of the deep connection between education and democracy and the critical role of researchers.
More than 150 TC faculty and students presented at the conference on topics ranging from play-based learning and embodied storytelling to violence prevention and civic action in the classroom. The depth and breadth of scholarship on display showcased TC’s commitment to impactful research and practice. Several faculty and alumni were also honored for their contributions to the field of education.
At a reception hosted for the TC community, President Thomas Bailey discussed the significance of collaborative opportunities like AERA at a precarious moment for research amid significant cuts. “Our challenge is to go forward, undaunted, and your presence here shows that we are doing just that,” President Bailey said. “This speaks to the tenacity of our community, the value of our work and the timeless vitality of our mission.”
A lecture series named for TC’s Edmund W. Gordon — the first honorary president of AERA and Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education — was another exhibit of TC’s impact on education research. As part of the series, Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, Professor of Critical Race, Media and Educational Studies and Director of the Edmund W. Gordon for Advanced Study, moderated and participated in discussions that investigated the challenges of educational research and considered new approaches to Black Studies research.
TC faculty and alumni received the below honors at AERA. Know of a TC honoree not listed here? Please let us know by emailing views@tc.edu.
KerryAnn O’Meara — Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean, and Professor of Higher Education — and Mark Anthony Gooden — Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor of Education Leadership — were selected as 2025 AERA Fellows, one of the organization’s highest honors, in recognition of their exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research. They join more than 20 TC faculty members who have been elected Fellows since the honor’s inception in 2008.
O’Meara is an internationally recognized scholar on academic careers and reward systems. She draws on insights from organizational behavior, higher education research, and behavioral economics to identify, test, and implement policies, practices, and interventions that embed transparency, clarity, credit, fairness and context in hiring, retention, workload and evaluation policies and practices. She joined Teachers College in 2023 from the University of Maryland, where she served as Professor of Higher Education and a Distinguished Scholar Teacher, and as Special Assistant to the Provost for Strategic Initiatives. She was elected and served as President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in 2020, and was elected as an ACE Fellow in 2022. Her work has been widely published, funded, and shared with colleges and universities trying to create more equitable workplaces.
Gooden is a widely acclaimed and published authority on culturally responsive school leadership. He examines legal and justice-centered policies and practices that support school leaders in their work, especially in urban schools. Gooden is the co-author of The Change You Want to See, published last fall, and Five Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership. A former middle and high school mathematics teacher, he is past president of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), 2017 recipient of UCEA Jay D. Scribner Mentoring Award and 2021 recipient of the UCEA Master Professor Award for distinguished service in teaching, curriculum development, and student mentoring. His work has been supported by entities such as the Wallace Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.
Alex Eble, Associate Professor of Economics and Education, will receive the Outstanding Reviewer Award for Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, recognizing his exemplary service to the journal.
Eble’s scholarship focuses on how children form beliefs about themselves and how this affects their development, as well as the efficacy and scalability of policy options to raise learning levels in the developing world. His work draws on insights from experience as a development practitioner in China, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau and India. Eble has previously won first place in the 2022 APPAM Annual Conference Poster Session; and was named the 2020 Emerging Education Policy Scholar by the American Enterprise Institute.
Rajashi Ghosh, Associate Professor of Adult Learning & Leadership, will receive the Distinguished Paper award from the Mentorship and Mentoring Practices SIG for "Comprehending multiple identities as minoritized students in engineering: How can developmental networks grow meaning-making capacity?"
Ghosh’s work focuses on the continuous learning and development of adults in workplaces. She served as the editor-in-chief of Human Resource Development International from 2021 to 2024. Ghosh has previously received the Mid-Career Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2021, and 2022 AHRD Wayne Pace Book of the Year Award for co-edited book, Connecting and Relating at Work: HRD Perspectives on Developmental Relationships.
Felicia Moore Mensah, Professor of Science and Education, will receive Urban Education’s annual Kofi Lomotey Outstanding Reviewer Award. This award recognizes a reviewer, outside of the Urban Education board, for exemplary service to the journal over the academic year.
Mensah previously received AERA’s Scholars of Color in Education Distinguished Career Contribution Award in 2024 and Early Career Award in 2012. Her work focuses on helping make science education relevant and accessible to all people. Mensah is the author of Like Words Falling onto the Page: Demystifying the Academic Writing and Publishing Process, which supports academic writers at all career stages. Her journal appointments include serving as co-editor of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST).
Na Lor, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Education, has been appointed as Program Chair-Elect of the Cultural Historical Research, SIG #30.
Lor joined the Teachers College faculty in 2022. Her research leverages mixed methods, cultural historical activity theory, and transformative paradigms to address education inequity. In 2020, the Teachers College Record published Lor’s co-authored, peer-reviewed article: “The Road to Becoming a Scientist: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Supports and Barriers Experienced by First-year Community College Students.”
Prem Phyak, Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education, has been elected as Program Chair of the Decolonial, Postcolonial and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education, SIG #153. Phyak joined the TC faculty in 2023, and his research interests include language policy, multilingual education and translanguaging, in addition to many other topics in the field.
Phyak’s books include Multilingual Education in South Asia: At the Intersection of Policy and Practice. In addition to his research and writings, he has advised Nepal’s Ministry of Education and other governing bodies in regards to local education issues. He previously received the Gill Sturtridge First-Time Speaker Award from the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Professor of English Education, has been elected as a Member-at-Large on the organization’s Council, for which she will serve a three-year term.
Sealey-Ruiz, a widely-published scholar on culturally-relevant education and racial literacy, previously received numerous honors from AERA, including the Mid-Career Award in 2016, and the Critical Educators for Social Justice Mentor Award in 2018. Her published titles include All About Black Girl Love in Education; the highly acclaimed Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education; and her poetry volume Love from the Vortex. Last spring, she also received New York University’s 2024 Dorothy Height Distinguished Alumni Award.
Alumni
TC doctoral student Edith P. Middleton (M.A. ’16) was voted Chair-Elect of the Graduate Student Council. She will serve a three-year term following the 2025 Annual Meeting and join the AERA Council in 2026–2027. With 15 years of teaching experience, Middleton focuses on teacher education and mentorship in her scholarship, particularly for mid to late career educators.