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Degrees & Programs
CONCENTRATION: Culture, Institutions, and Society (CIS)
INTERESTS: South Asian Philosophy of Education, Alternative Education, Social Epistemology, Liberatory Education in Practice, Institutional Analysis, Ethnographies of Schooling
Devika Agrawal is a philosopher and anthropologist of education, focusing on the anti-colonial alternative education movement of India that continues to flourish. More specifically, she looks at pedagogies and institutions that sustain independent thinking and epistemic autonomy.
CONCENTRATION: Education Policy and Program Evaluation (EPPE)
INTERESTS: Measurement, Causal Inference, Program Evaluation, Accountability Policy, Equity, Fairness
CONCENTRATION: Human Development, Learning and Teaching (HDLT)
INTERESTS: Teaching and Learning, Reasoning and Thinking, Classroom Discourse, Multilingual Pedagogy, Curriculum Design, Bilingualism, Hindi-medium Education
Apoorv Avram's research tries to understand how adolescents develop and use reasoning in school. His doctoral work looks at how English-medium classrooms in Delhi, India use Hindi in teaching-learning practices. His work borrows methods from philosophy, sociology, and psychology.
INTERESTS: Teacher Recruitment and Retention, Teacher Quality, Program Evaluation, Policy Evaluation Causal Inference
INTERESTS: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, Black, Adolescence, Intersectionality, Interventions, Relationships
Mamfatou Baldeh is a Ph.D. student in the AERID lab working with Dr. Adriana Umaña-Taylor. Her research interests center the education, identity development, and relationship/community-building experiences of Black adolescents and other students of color.
INTERESTS: Student Agency, Social Cognitive Theory, Critical and Institutional Sociology, Psychometrics and Scale Development, Mixed Methods Research, AI in Education, Post-Pandemic Student Engagement
Nick Balisciano is a veteran educator who leverages social cognitive theory, critical and institutional sociology, and mixed methods to reconceptualize and measure student agency, i.e., how students influence the nature and quality of their learning.
INTERESTS: Anthropology of Education, Immigrant Education, Ethnographic Methods, Migrant Youth
Ben Blanco is interested in how school and work experiences of high-school age, youth migrants before and after migration to the United States shape their aspirations. Ben uses ethnographic methods, including participant observation and interviews.
INTERESTS: Multilingualism, Educational Linguistics, Immigrant Education, Native Language Instruction, Language and Literacy Development
Bailey Buchanan studies multilingual language and literacy development in children and adolescents, particularly newcomers, in the U.S. context. She is interested in native language instruction and educational experiences that celebrate students’ linguistic resources.
INTERESTS: Philosophy of Education, Existentialism, Phenomenology Ethics, Philosophy with Children, Teacher and Student Agency, Teacher Education
Alex Chang is a Ph.D. student interested in studying the philosophy of education with a focus on questions of agency and ethics.
INTERESTS: Civic Education, Civic Development, Civic Discourse, Higher Education, Democratic Education College Students, Civic Pedagogy
Maya Cohen studies the civic education and civic formation of college students. Her current work explores the history of civic discourse pedagogies in higher education and the motivations and experiences of students who engage in discourse across political difference.