The College of Education and Human Development is proud to announce that three of our faculty members were recognized at this year’s American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference.

Dianna Townsend, Ed.D., Professor of Literacy Studies, was awarded the Notable Vocabulary Researcher award for her work in vocabulary research. According to AERA, this award “honors the efforts of scholars who have given their professional efforts to the field of vocabulary research. It bridges emergent researchers with those who have paved the way before them, and provides an opportunity to engage in a group presentation and discussion about the researcher’s work.”

Nathan Tanner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education Leadership, was awarded the Frantz Fanon Dissertation Award from the Decolonial, Postcolonial and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education SIG 153. According to AERA, this recognition is made to “doctoral students whose research demonstrates a political and ethical commitment to the unfinished project of decolonization and engages the challenges and possibilities of ongoing decolonization, global justice and solidarity in education."

Alexandra Aylward, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, was awarded the Outstanding Article in Systems Thinking in Education SIG Award. This recognition was made for her 2026 co-authored piece entitled, "Top Down and Bottom Up: Using the Deductive-Inductive Dual Pillar Integration Process (DID-PIP) to Answer Multilevel-Systems Questions” in the Journal of Mixed Methods Research.

Congratulations to each of them for their wonderful achievements.